


The Citadel Codex

by paleogymnast



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-11 21:20:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15324573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleogymnast/pseuds/paleogymnast
Summary: 1,500 years ago, the founders of Citadel—a peculiar binary planet—set out to establish a new colony far from the reaches of the galactic powers, the Central Empire and the Republic. Their colony would redefine life as we know it. 15 years ago, the rival galactic powers waged an all-out war on Citadel in search of her secrets. Citadel was lost and with it the sum total of her knowledge, research, history, and discoveries… or was it? Rumors persist that Citadel’s knowledge was scattered to the Cosmos, hidden, but not lost, if only one lock and one key can be found. As the rival superpowers compete to find the secrets of Citadel, a man alone who will search to reclaim his history. But as Imperial and Republic spies threaten to expose his secret and destroy the promise of Citadel once and for all, who the mysterious Jared whose side is he on?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the mods at [spn-j2-bigbang](spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com) for their continued support and for running this amazing challenge year after year. 
> 
> Thanks also to my beta, Carlos T, who put up with my impossible schedule and blown deadlines! As usual, I have continued to mess with the story after getting it back from my beta and any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Thank you also to my artist [Merakieross](merakieross.livejournal.com), who put up with my stubbornness and created some beautiful art! 
> 
> Please check out the art masterpost [here](https://merakieross.livejournal.com/12672.html) if you haven't already done so!
> 
> More notes on warnings are contained in the notes at the end of the fic. Please use the links to read those warnings. 
> 
> I had started an entirely different fic for this year's spn-j2-bigbang, then I watched two seasons of "The Expanse" in a weekend and this plot bunny was the result.

**The Citadel Codex**

**~~Prologue~~**

_codex:_  
n. an ancient manuscript text in book form.  
an official list of medicines, chemicals, etc. 

 

***  
 _There were two great powers in the galaxy: The Republic, an alliance of separate systems far flung and stretching along the great arc of the Cygnus–Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy; and the Central Empire, a cluster of closely knit worlds and nearby systems rumored to contain old Earth itself. For hundreds of years, the known galaxy existed in equipoise, the two great powers explored from time to time, occasionally squabbling or skirmishing, and every once in a while a world or even an entire system would switch sides or be awarded as a concession or reparation._

_But then, 1500 years ago, a coalition of scientists and explorers comprising members of both the Republic and the Central Empire began the **great expansion** into what we now know as the Unclaimed Sector, and with the great expansion, the systems of Avalon and Proxima were colonized. But as the explorers pushed outwards, a small group settled in the unusual and isolated system then known as MKX921ɣ. There, a binary planetary system orbited a trinary star. Statistically, it shouldn’t have been habitable, but the planet was lush with its own natural waterfalls and carbon-based vegetation and took easily to the gentle terraforming introduced by the colonists._

_Over time, the settlers of MKX921ɣ named their system Citadel, and established a most peculiar form of government, a hereditary monarchy with numerous sworn and bonded vassals and nobles. As word made it back to the galactic powers, they initially dismissed this as a strange quirk, but then the rumors started to filter out to Avalon and Proxima and beyond. Citadel had developed a new type of bioaugmentation unlike anything seen in the Republic or the Central Empire. Rumor had it Citadel had figured out how to grow a type of data crystal with denser storage and deeper encryption than anything seen before. An entire planetary system’s history and cultural heritage could be saved to a crystal the size of a toddler’s fist or transferred into a genetically bonded, biocompatible data key that grew out of an individual’s body. There were some rumors, although fervently disputed, Citadel had even developed a way to merge the datacrystal with a human host._

_At the same time, word began to spread about some particularly powerful terraforming agents that could remap or reconstruct not only planets, but existing life to make it more compatible with human life. The story was the biologists on Citadel had developed it to tweak the characteristics of a particularly prevalent, but deadly snake, that in addition to biting humans, had a nasty habit of getting high off bluegreen algae and contaminating entire batches of the versatile substance when the snakes inevitably drowned and leached toxin into the algae bloom. A gentle, targeted aerosol spraying, and the snakes’ venom was no longer toxic to humans and the snakes themselves were attracted to one of the native pest plants that he humans would like to see diminish in prevalence somewhat._

_Of course, these technologies were too good to pass up, and the galactic powers came calling. At first, they tried to bargain. Then they tried threats, and later a blockade. Of course, Citadel was a lush and self-sustaining binary, and all the components of their technology had come from their home planets. So, as annoying as it was to be without trade, the blockade didn’t have the effect the galactic powers wanted. Citadel was no closer to sharing their technologies with anyone, especially not the Republic and Central Empire that had now proved themselves to be enemies of Citadel._

_Of course, before interplanetary relations turned south, the scientists of Citadel had welcomed some foreign researchers with open arms. One of the early research teams smuggled a sample of the bioreformatter out of Citadel and back to the Central Empire. There the Imperial Science Corps went to work on reverse engineering the wondrous substance and tweaking it to suit other purposes. Of course, they were missing some of the components—native only to Citadel—that made it work as a more subtle tool, but at team of Central Imperial scientists soon figured out how to turn it into a weapon to switch _off_ life, even human life. And what a useful discovery that was. As the scientists shared with their government, the discovery was certain to revolutionize warfare. It was a new super-deterrent and showed great promise for winning conflicts while leaving infrastructure intact and undamaged._

_With the blockade ineffective, tensions came to a head. The Empire sent a small black ops strike force armed with the new weapon, Apraxix9, and instructions to use it to aquire Citadel’s central data repository, which reportedly stored all the research and information on both the bioreformatters and the data crystals, from the Royal family._

_Meanwhile, the Republic raced towards Citadel with an armada of its most powerful battleships, keen to stop the Imperials from leaving the system unless they shared the data._

_In the catastrophe that followed, Apraxix9 was unleashed on the population of Citadel. To the horror of the Empire, when the host’s nervous system failed the bioelectric keys went dark and there was no way to use the keys to access Citadel’s vast library of knowledge. And once Apraxix9 was released, it was very hard to stop._

_Over 99 percent of the population of Citadel, including the entire royal family, all their bonded vassals, and every other noble family died as did almost 50% of the Imperial strike force and their eventual support troops and 70% of the Republic forces, who tried to flip their plan and act as a relief and rescue force once the scope of the devastation was clear. Apraxix9 killed indiscriminately, destroying animal and plant life too. In the battle that followed, the larger binary planet underwent a geological cascade reaction and split in two, knocking the smaller planet off its axis and rendering it near uninhabitable. All that death and destruction and the prize was lost. The information of Citadel’s marvelous creations died with it._

_Or did it? There were rumors someone in the royal family survived, badly wounded, but with their bioelectric key intact. Others whispered that Citadel had hid its treasure trove in subspace, data crystals just waiting to be found and ready to spill the secrets, if only they could be found. But even if a data crystal was found, one would need a royal key to unlock it, and of course all the royals were gone…_

_With the combined knowledge of Citadel apparently lost to the greed of the ruling powers, scavengers and government agents alike search for any sign of the mysterious datacubes and their more mysterious keys. But even 15 years later, none have been found._

***


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

“Bleeerk... Bleeerk... Bleeerk...”

The annoying sound penetrated through the haze of dreams best left forgotten, and the solitary man shifted on the bunk. A faint noise, halfway between a bitter groan and a miserable whimper escaped his lips. The movement was enough that gravity won the battle with his precarious pose and he toppled forward from the edge of his side to lie prone on the bunk. Neither movement or noise was enough to rouse him from a dead sleep, though, and as soon as his balance steadied, his body relaxed again into sleep.

Well, sort-of relaxed. The lines didn’t smooth from his brow and the tension never left his hands, which remained clenched in fists. 

“Bleeeerk... Bleeeerk... BLEEEERK...”

The sound returned and continued, and with each cycle the klaxon sounded louder, longer, and more insistent. 

He twitched.

“BLEEEEEERK!”

He jumped in bed, rousing from a dead sleep to defensive, but still half asleep, even as he flipped over and collapsed into a sitting position with his back to the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, one hand outstretched to ward off attack while the other reached sideways, groping for something on the small ledge next to the head of the bunk. 

“BLEEEEEEERK!”

His left hand connected with a small communicator and smacked it, sending the thin, flexible, transparent, curved rectangular device flying. 

For a split second, all seemed well. The lines around his eyes, present even in sleep, began to relax, while his outstretched right hand relaxed its grip on the glinting metal blade that had appeared in his grasp. 

“BLEEEEEEEERK!”

That wasn’t his alarm... It was the proximity alert.

“Shit!”

All traces of bleariness and sleep vanished. His eyes snapped open, a faint glimmer of muddy green in a sea of stark white reflecting in the dim light of the ship’s cabin. The knife flipped in his hand and slid silently back in its holster as quickly as it had appeared. He rolled to his feet and crossed the narrow cabin in the time between heartbeats. He moved quickly down the narrow hallway. stocking feet noiseless on the metal grating, not even his limp slowing him down. 

He hopped down three steps, turned left, and hauled himself up the five steps to the bridge with his right hand grasped tight to the railing as he slammed his left hand into the hidden biometric safe. The door retracted and he slapped the pulse pistol into his hand. 

There shouldn’t be anything or anyone out here to trigger a proximity sensor. Jensen didn’t keep to the ass end of nowhere whenever he could because he wanted to run into people. If he had his way he’d be perfectly happy never to encounter another living soul for as long as he lived. 

Well not _happy_ , because happiness, joy, and pretty much any remotely pleasant emotions hadn’t been in his personal repertoire for more years than he cared to remember. Suffice it to say he preferred solitude to people, and he had enough of those—or at least their ghosts—living behind his eyelids, running through his mind. But the point remained. There shouldn’t be anyone out here.

He created the top of the stairs, crossed the walkway in two steps, slapped his right hand on the door controls for the bridge, and slid down the stair rail on the other side perched on his right buttock, and regained his feet on the bridge decking. Halfway between a true bridge and a cockpit, the ship’s control center had four chairs and enough extra space for maybe ten people total to cram into the room with the door closed (as long as someone stood on the stairs. Of course, Jensen had never had two people on the bridge, let alone ten. 

He darted to the front left-hand chair, but caught his bad leg on one of the support struts for the rear, port-side seat’s instrument panel. Biting back a grunt of pain, he caught himself on his own console and fell into the pilot’s seat awkwardly landing harder on his bad leg. With a barely audible sigh, Jensen shifted his weight to the other side and lifted his leg into place. The two unexpected hits in close succession had temporarily shorted out the nanomotors in his implants leaving his left leg almost-dead weight in their absence. When the pain subsided enough that he could breathe normally, he lifted the headset out of its slot and slipped it on, the speakers resting against his ears, enhanced view screen perched the perfect distance from his right eye. 

“Karen, talk to me, what the hell is setting off that alarm?”

“So good of you to join us captain,” a pleasant, mezzo-soprano female voice spoke as if out of thin air, in actuality, emanating from the ship’s speakers. Her voice was quiet, but clear. 

“You know I’m shit for reaction time, I’m out if practice, but this isn’t a test—” It wasn’t; he could feel it”—so what the fuck is going on?”

The disembodied voice started to speak again, but he cut her off. “In the headset, please.”

This time her voice sounded in his ear. “You know chances are they can’t hear me. And if they can, they’ll hear you too.” Not to mention the alarm, remained unsaid. 

“I prefer to err on the side of caution with my chances, and who the hell are ‘they’ anyway?” The alarm was still sounding its harsh, grating tone now rising in pitch. But before he could ask Karen to shut it off, the sound stopped abruptly, leaving him alone in the silence of deep space, the twinkling lights of distant stars and the faint glow of the ship’s instrument panels joined only by the faint hum of the life support systems at work. “Thanks.”

When she spoke again, her tone was serious, sobered, less playful. “Unknown. Their flight path is not on any known shipping or transit lane. They dropped into realspace five minutes ago, and are approaching from aft, what would be the sensor blindspot on most ships of this configuration.”

“IFF?” he asked, pulling up the sensor readout on his monitor. 

“Their transponder is switched off, no response to passive ping...”

There was a slight hesitation in Karen’s voice that told him she was concealing something. “What is it?”

“While I cannot confirm it as the vessel has no discernible registry information, based on its design, it appears to be Central Imperial light cruiser.”

A chill settled in Jensen’s stomach as she spoke. His breath hitched, his heartbeat stuttered, and it felt like every drop of blood in his veins had turned to ice. “They shouldn’t be out here,” he managed, as he squeezed his eyes shut and blinked rapidly, shoving away memories of burned homes, scorched earth, partially vaporized bodies, pools of terrible liquid filled with mottled-gray lifeless corpses, and desperate screams. Pleading for help. Pleading for mercy. Pleading for death. He couldn’t help them. He wanted to, but he just...

 _In. Out. In... hold... out... in..._. The overwhelming rage quelled, and he was able to release his right hand from its death grip on the console.

“We are being hailed,” Karen’s voice cut through the remnants of his flashback, and he squinted, as if he just squinted hard enough, he could make out the approaching vessel through the bridge’s forward windows. Of course, he couldn’t. While his body was full of implants and artificial replacements, ocular implants were not among them.

“What’s our transponder?” he asked, unable to recall what he had last set as his ship’s ID. He just hoped it wasn’t something particularly obviously false that would he sure to attract attention.

“Light cargo vessel _Diligent_ registered out of Avalon.” She paused and her voice, when she spoke again, was as close to smug as an AI could get. “I took the initiative of changing to our most innocuous and versatile option as soon as you set out.”

Under normal circumstances, Jensen would complain about Karen making choices for him or disregarding his orders, but right now, he was just grateful. “Thanks, Karen,” he said with genuine gratitude. She’d probably be insufferable for the next week after a compliment like that, or at least she would be, if they survived the next 10 minutes. 

“You’re welcome, but they’re hailing you again.”

Jensen squeezed the console again, grip so tight he swore he could feel the pins shift inside his right hand, metal creaking against the bone, before he released his grasp and let out a long sigh. “Okay. Audio only.”

Karen didn’t answer, but a second later the faint hiss of comms static filled the bridge speakers before the static cut out and was replaced with clipped, vaguely imperial tones. “Vessel _Diligent_ this is the Central Imperial Envoy Vessel _Quintus Iscariot_. Please state your destination and purpose.”

“This is vessel _Diligent_ registered courier from Avalon, currently en route from Proxima Alpha to Proxima Delta.”

There was a pause before the Iscariot answered, “You are travelling between Proxima Alpha and Proxima Delta? Our sensors showed your subspace engines are inactive, but appear undamaged. Do you require assistance?”

Jensen cringed. That really was the kicker. Very few would understand why someone would spend weeks travelling between two planets in the same system when the same trip could be accomplished in less than 30 minutes in subspace, even with in-system precautions and docking procedures on both ends taken into account. Sure, some vessels didn’t have subspace engines and were limited to in-system runs. The _Diligent_ , or rather the _Requiem_ as was her true designation (although that name was known only to Jensen and his AI), had subspace engines. Ships with subspace engines did not normally crawl along in realspace unless there was a problem.

Of course, Jensen had a very good reason for his slow, purposeful stroll through the system, but it wasn’t a purpose he was willing to share with others, especially not Central Imp spies. Or _envoys_ , whatever. With the truth not an option, he went for the next best thing.

“Nothing is wrong. All engines are functional, the ship is between assignments, and I am taking the opportunity to, enjoy the scenery. I consider it a shipboard vacation.” Jensen forced a smile, hoping casual nonchalance made it into his voice, but cringed even as he did it. It made him sound either flaky, pathetic, or unhinged, maybe all three.

There was a faint and decidedly unprofessional rustling, shuffling noise on the other end of the transmission, during which Jensen was certain he could hear muffled laughter. He couldn’t tell how many people were listening on the other end of the conversation, though. “Did you say a shipboard vacation?” the same voice that had spoken before managed after a moment.

“Yes,” Jensen said, calm, offering no further reaction.

“And you are not on assignment currently,” the Central Imperial officer responded again, tone rhetorical. “How long do you have until your next assignment?”

That brought Jensen up short. In fact, he had nothing lined up, although he had several steady work contacts on Proxima Delta who would have something for him if and when he asked, but he wasn’t about to tell these Imp interlopers that. How long should he say… well, he had called it a _vacation_ , and he’d implied he was traveling to Proxima Delta directly, so… “I have no assignments for the next standard month.”

“Please stand by,” the Central Imperial office responded. This time the comm cut off abruptly, saving them from the rustling noises of bridge activity.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Karen murmured in Jensen’s headset. 

“You and me both,” he admitted. He didn’t know why the Central Imperial ship was out here, deep in the unclaimed territories. More perplexing still was their interest in his realspace traveling ship and his lack of commitments. Together, those two data points tended to point to a very unpleasant conclusion. And that was before he considered the reality that the only good reason someone might have for traveling through this system in reaslspace was the same reason he was there…

Looking for subspace windows and blips, searching for one of the lost Citadel keys.

“Diligent, please respond,” the Imperial officer said as the comms crackled back to life. 

“Diligent here.”

“Please standby and prepare to be boarded.”

Jensen actually scoffed. “Under whose authority? We’re not in Imperial territory.”

This time there was an actual scuffle on the other end. Jensen could hear squeaking, rustling, and thumping, something that sounded like static, and the murmur of distorted voices, some of them probably quite loud. When the comms came back, the person speaking was different. It was a male voice, young, and somehow pleasant sounding. His accent was just a notch off Imperial standard. And there was something in the tone that made Jensen want to know more about him. 

“While that is true, for the moment,” the speaker said, answering Jensen’s question without any acknowledgment of the preceding minute or so of dead air, “We believe you and your ship could be of great assistance to us. We have need of a well-equipped vessel to do some realspace scouting for a planetary survey mission. We would ask you to leave, but seeing as you do have a right to be here, and we do not yet have a right to exclude you, we are hoping we can reach a more… amicable solution.”

“Their weapons are on standby,” Karen offered, her voice a whisper in his headset. “Shall I prep shields and prepare to enter subspace?”

“No, you know why they’re probably here. They probably suspect me, and we can’t let them survey the system unsupervised. We might as well see what they have to say. Maybe we can supervise each other,” Jensen murmured.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah,” he said to Karen. Then, over the comms, “What do you propose?”

The pleasant-sounding man’s voice came back, “We’re sending an envoy of three over to meet with you and see if your ship can aid us. If it can, you will be well compensated, and I promise we will leave you to your enjoyment of empty space as much as possible.”

The comms cut off. When Jensen was sure they were really off, and the Imperial interlopers weren’t listening in, he muttered, “What the actual fuck?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Karen said, aloud this time, through the bridge speakers. “A small Imperial Shuttle is approaching our hangar and signaling for entry.”

“Can you get any readings?” 

“Three life signs and a lot of shielding. I can’t even be sure what kind of propulsion system the shuttle uses.” Karen paused, but the faint whir of the ship’s processors let Jensen know she was still thinking. “You’d better get up and get over there.”

“Shit,” Jensen muttered, realizing his bad leg was still mostly numb. He reached out with his mind and turned up the strength of the implants as much as he dared. The sudden surge of strength and sensation nauseated him and sent him doubling over his console. When the worst of it passed, he pushed himself shakily to his feet, tugged at his cuffs to make sure both wrists were covered, and set out for the hangar doing his best not to limp. He mostly hid it, except he could tell his gait was just a little _off_ and anyone who looked too closely would be sure to notice.

***

Jensen wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t quite the sight that greeted him. Three individuals disembarked the sleek, black, skiff-class Imperial shuttle and made their way to meet him near the hangar entrance. The first was a red-haired woman with pale skin and a severe, but devious, smile. She appeared to be about Jensen’s age, maybe a little younger, and introduced herself as Commander Ruth Connell. The second individual was Alexander Calvert, a very young-looking, handsome officer with a clean-shaven face and artfully styled hair, who seemed to stare through Jensen, assessing, rather than taking his outstretched hand. Calvert was young, but already a full lieutenant, and there was something cold and shrewd in his eyes as he looked around the _Diligent’s_ hangar bay, assessing.

Finally, the third individual was a ridiculously tall man, who introduced himself as Jared Padalecki, but offered no rank. He said he was a diplomatic trainee, and he moved his considerable frame with all the grace, or rather clumsiness, of an old-Earth bull in an antiquities shop. Rather than endear him, the behavior made Jensen all the more suspicious. However, the dismissive attitude both Calvert and Connell seemed to have towards Jared, as he insisted on being called, made Jensen think that if Jared was a spy, the others weren’t aware of his true mission. He tended to think Calvert and Connell were the two most likely to be duplicating Jensen’s efforts and searching for the same precious pieces of history that had sent him to the Proxima system, while Jared seemed more likely to be control officer trying to make sure his nominal superiors dotted their ‘I’s and crossed their ‘t’s while the others ran circles around him.

Jensen introduced himself, “Captain Jens Klesa,” the assumed name he’d done his best to assimilate and ensure appeared to be the _only_ identity he had ever had, falling from his lips without any hesitation. 

He thought for a moment the tall, not-quite-right diplomatic intern showed something like surprise or recognition at Jensen’s introduction, but just as soon as Jensen thought he spotted it, any sign of a reaction was gone. All he could get was impatience from Commander Connell and what appeared to be seething disgust from Lieutenant Calvert.

“ _Captain_ ,” Connell said with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “perhaps you could show us to a more… comfortable environment for a discussion. It is most imperative we secure your cooperation and continue on our way.”

“Of course,” Jensen said, stepping aside. “If you will just follow me, I do have a galley that can serve as our meeting room.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, he strode off in the direction of the galley, located at the heart of the _Requiem_ currently masquerading as the _Diligent_ , leading his three Imperial guests up and down ladders and across one narrow catwalk without checking to see if they could keep up. When they arrived at the galley, Connell sneered at the relatively spartan offerings, while Calvert appeared positively murderous. Padalecki, Jared, just looked mildly interested sharing none of his comrades’ apparent contempt. 

When they were all seated around the long metal table that doubled as both eating surface and extra counterspace, Jensen spoke, “Now can you please explain to me why I should agree to divert my ship from its present course with you aboard?” 

“Where is the rest of your crew?” Calvert spoke for the first time, glancing around the empty galley. “It would be best if we briefed and vetted all of you at once.

Jensen leaned back and regarded his guests. Connell appeared bored, while Padalecki’s right eyebrow twitched minutely, revealing shock or skepticism at Calvert’s poor observational powers.

“I do not have a crew,” Jensen explained. “It’s just me.” 

Calvert sat up straighter, his right hand twitching in the direction of his poorly concealed sidearm. 

“You know, I could have sworn I heard you talking to someone earlier,” Jared offered.

Jensen managed to keep his eyebrows under control. He hadn’t spoken to Karen on an open channel or at all since the Imperial guests had boarded. Jared’s statement implied the _Iscariot_ had employed some sort of surveillance programming.

Judging by Commander Connell’s enraged expression, Jensen wasn’t the only one surprised Jared had tipped his hand.

“I have an AI companion and copilot who aids me in running the _Diligent_ ,” Jensen offered, leaving them to wonder just how sophisticated Karen was and what she might be doing.

Apparently satisfied at the explanation, Connell got down to business. 

The proposal was about what Jensen expected. As Commander Connell explained, they needed to commandeer his ship for a system-wide survey. Only they couldn’t _commandeer_ it as the Central Empire did not yet have authority in the system, and Jensen’s registration was local. Nor could they technically order him to cut short his vacation or _not_ fly in realspace. So, instead, they asked for his help. If he would consent to flying the ship in certain patterns, along its existing realspace course towards his destination, they could cut down on their overall survey time, by splitting the work with the _Iscariot_ , which was reportedly needed for a similar function along the border of the exclusion zone. 

They didn’t tell him what they were looking for, and they insisted they didn’t need any particular searching equipment. If Jensen was anyone else, he might have thought they were prospecting, looking for wreckage, abandoned shuttles, gas cloud deposits, tachyon eddies, or protomatter bubbles, any sort of anomaly that could go undetected in a solar system but, once found, might convey interstellar prospecting rights, presumably giving the Empire, in this instance, a legitimate claim to being in the system, which could be leveraged into converting Proxima into an Imperial Colony and then outright annexing it later on.

Of course, the unstated implication of Commander Connell’s appeal was that the _Quintus Iscariot_ was most definitely armed and armored, and quite likely an actual gun ship, hiding under guise of a diplomatic transport vessel. If Jensen said “no,” he and his ship would be unceremoniously blasted from the sky, either wiped out entirely, or conveniently staged to appear to be the result of a tragic accident, perhaps the victim of an unexpected gamma ray burst.

For all that they—particularly Jared—tried to give the impression Jensen had a choice, Jensen never doubted for a second this was anything more than an illusion, social lubrication. Even if his assumptions about being wiped from existence if he didn’t go along with their demands were wrong (and he didn’t think they were), if Jensen didn’t go along, they’d do what they wanted, with or without his ship. And if they were looking for the lost knowledge of Citatdel, waiting for it to pop out of subspace, well, Jensen couldn’t take the chance _not_ to supervise them. If the Imps got hold of one of Citadel’s datacubes, given enough time they might open it and decode it without damaging the data or killing themselves. 

And if that happened, Jensen would have failed. The last guardian of the Citadel Codex could not let the vast knowledge of his people fall to the hands of those who would use it to destroy.

So, grudgingly, Jensen welcomed his three new guests aboard, and retreated to the privacy of his cabin as early as possible to try to wrest back some control over his life. 

***  
***


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

“Run Jensen.” Hands were shoving at him, pushing him up the stairs deeper into the palace, towards the throne room even as they tugged at his sleeves pulling them down his arms, over his wrists, covering any hint of the crystalline substance imbedded in his arm.

There were shouts behind him. People screaming. A thick black cloud. Terrible agony… the noises didn’t sound human, somewhere between a scream and a rattle, punctuated with wet, harsh gasps. He wanted to believe it was something different, alien, made up, but he was old enough and experienced enough to know that wasn’t true.

Death. Death was everywhere. Following them. Deeper and deeper into the castle. Past security barriers that should have kept it out, kept it at bay. There were projections, plans. He’d seen them, since he’d become of age and had begun his military commitment, seen more once he’d taken up his spot on the ruling counsel last year. If anyone came for the bioreformatters there were protocols, protections, procedures. Automated defenses would throw up physical blockades giving them time to obfuscate and mislead. Everything was either coded to biomechanical locks or was tied to the bioelectric datacrystal keys. There shouldn’t be any way for this to happen. 

But the sounds of death and destruction were closing on them, the black smoke growing closer, even as his mother pushed him up the stairs. 

“Run, please Jensen, run faster.” Her voice was panicked now. He had never heard that tone of fear in his mother’s voice. 

He tried to comply with her words, but the faster he rushed, the more he slipped and ultimately tripped on the marble stairs.

Stupid asthetics! The stairs were too shallow, the material too slick. If his ancestors hadn’t been going for a sort of classical irony, evoking images of palaces of old, they could have had a nice, textured ramp or maybe a flat surface or a turbolift or something that wouldn’t require him to exercise precision and impossible feats of balance to run up the stairs.

There was a crash behind them as the wall beside the last turn in the grand staircase bowed out and then fractured, tiny shards of superheated synthetic stone sent flying outwards so fast and so far he felt the sting of tiny burning shards against his face, hands, and side as the shrapnel struck him a split second later. 

His mother fell, the smack of her hands hitting the stairs behind him shaking him from his reverie. The world seemed to speed up around him, sounds suddenly too loud, the air too hot, panic pressing in like a physical weight upon his chest.

“Go, Jensen,” she shoved at him as he bent to pull her up.

“Come on.” 

“Too late for that, you have to get out.”

He didn’t understand what she meant, until he looked down and saw a slowly spreading black pool of a slightly oily looking substance seeping outward from a somewhat gelatinous appearing canister. A faint puff of black smoke was emanating from where the liquid was soaking into the skin of her ankles, her shoes, the fabric surrounding her legs.

Jensen felt something snap in his chest as his face went blank. It was on her legs, but it hadn’t spread throughout her entire body yet. There was still time. “It’ll be okay. We’ll deal with it later. Just let me help you up.”

His mother looked up at him horrified. “They’re coming, and you have to go. There’s a datacube in the throne, the controls. You have to launch them.”

“But that’s not my job. I’m supposed to get to the East Tower, launch defenses, purge the databackups.”

“Your sister’s already gone. There is no one else. If you take me, I’ll only slow you down, and they will take your key, steal the Codex, and kill you.”

“No. It’s not supposed to be—the defenses…”

“Jensen something is very, very wrong—” she gasped and broke off.

He looked down and saw the black oily slick running up her side to her back, spreading faster and faster… it wouldn’t be long now.

“Something is very wrong, and the defenses haven’t worked. The failsafe. You have to activate it, or we will have all died for nothing, now go! Run Jensen!” She squeezed his hand hard, too hard, as she gave him her last command, and he found himself complying despite his best intentions. 

His mind was stuck somewhere between completely blank and flashing through every single task he would need to complete to have any hope of surviving. Screw that. He wasn’t surviving this. To have any chance of making sure the horrible sounds of death and torture surrounding him weren’t all in vain. Seven years ago, when he’d come of age, he’d made his choice, sealed his oath and pledged himself to Citadel, to protecting her Codex of knowledge at all costs. He would fulfill his promise, even if the circumstances were different than he could ever have anticipated.

He was halfway up the next flight when he heard a sudden bloodcurdling scream behind him that was just as suddenly cut off. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder, certain if he saw he wouldn’t be able to run anymore.

Somewhere behind him another wall exploded, more shards of superheated rock went flying at him, one big, too big, imbedded itself in his back, too deep and too close to his spine. Slick, hot, wetness dripped down his back and he stumbled forward barking his knees on the steps. He started to get up, when something whizzed behind him. He hit the deck on instinct, seven years of military-training-ingrained reflexes saving him from certain death, his chin smacking so hard against the steps his teeth slammed together, and he tasted iron from the fresh cut on his tongue.

Up ahead to the right, one of the gelatinous, spherical Apraxix9 grenades hit the wall with a resounding smack and began leaking its contents onto the stairs.

Jensen pushed himself up, scrambling on hands and feet up the stairs until he could grab the railing on the other side, away from the spreading pool of bioreformatting neurotoxin. He moved faster, faster, tripping again, and hauling himself along, ignoring the pain, ignoring the blood, ignoring—

The sound of pounding feet and small explosions grew ever closer even as the heart-clenching death throes of his unseen friends, family, countrymen died down. 

He rounded another corner, high enough now to see the evening sun streaming through the windows, the comforting shadow of Citadel Prime’s smaller binary twin and the bright, jade green of waterfall grass waving against the windows of the palace’s central spire the only familiar views. Through the window, he could see more clouds of oily black, buildings in flames, the intermittent flash of projectile and pulse weapons colliding with the planetary shield, punctuated with even bigger fireballs as small craft crashed into the shield while shadows of larger capital ships passed overhead. He couldn’t see any ships leaving the ground, but surely the evacuation should have been underway? 

He rounded another corner, tripping on the loose carpet of the stair runner and catching himself again on the railing, almost smacking his face into the crystalline window. 

Down below, Chapel lake wrapped around the palace, but rather than the typical bluegreen of its water, a black pool was spreading stretching as far as the eye could see. Where buildings were not on fire, they appeared iridescent and damp, the oil slick of Apraxix9 spreading over every surface. And on the horizon, he could see a heavy black cloud, not smoke, and not quite like the cloud that developed when Apraxix9 interacted with biological organisms, poisoning plants and destroying the nervous systems of animals. This was shiny, almost glittering… they’d aerosolized it. He watched as a large projectile hit and then punched through the planetary shield and struck the ground. Before the noise reached him, there was an explosion as dirt, buildings, grass, and other debris were flung into the air, only to be almost immediately blacked out by more of the strange glittering smoke. The shuttlepad was on fire and a black cloud was encroaching on it. There was no evacuation because everyone was dead or soon would be, the shuttles all destroyed. How far around the planet the devastation spread, he could not be sure, but in the end it wouldn’t matter. The truth of his mother’s words struck him then, the full weight of realization buckling his knees. Those with the keys to their worlds’ knowledge would soon all be gone. He would have gone down there, collapsed into the stairs, lost himself in grief, but he could hear a weapon priming behind him, an electronic buzz…

He was running again, up, up, before he realized he was moving. There was another explosion, too close, as the almost-wet-sounding smack of another Apraxix9 grenade struck the window where he’d just been. He pulled himself up the last flight of stairs, around two more corners, and slammed his hand against the control panel, diving under the door to the throne room as it began to rise.

He turned to close it again, but someone else was there slamming the controls and causing the door to lower.

It was Christian, his friend and former trainer. Sworn, bonded noble. He should have been on the first transport out as his limited key would have given them a means for recovery, some semblance of control if he’d gotten offworld and away from the destruction, but he had stayed with the control room. “Jensen? What are you doing here? Where’s your sister—” Christian’s voice broke off, taking in Jensen’s expression. Christian was bleeding, and the entire building was shaking.

“Mom said—I have to launch the failsafe.”

“Go, I’ll hold them off,” Christian said. Jensen started for the dais in the center of the room, but Christian stopped him with a hand on the shoulder, reached into his pocket, pulled out Jensen’s identchip, and reached over his head to remove his own identchip. “Here,” he held out his chip.

Jensen stared at it, frozen. “But you need…” 

Christian was shaking his head, gesturing at his side. 

Only then did Jensen notice the spreading pool of blood, how much of Christian’s clothes were soaked through. 

“I’m not going to make it to get out of here, but you might, and you’ll have a lot better chance if they don’t realize you’re you. Take it!” He shook the badge until Jensen’s fingers closed around it. 

A boom sounded close by and the heavy, sculpted metal door to the throne room shook. 

Jensen held Christian’s gaze for a moment then took off at a run. The failsafe was something they were never supposed to use. It was a last-ditch “solution” for which Jensen hadn’t seen a need, but here he was, his world dying around him, his family gone, his best friend about to sacrifice his life, and why? Yes, Citadel had developed some sophisticated technology and he’d grown up in a culture where he took for granted the ability to modify one’s self or surroundings to meet one’s needs. They didn’t have scarcity, they didn’t need trade. People were who they were meant to be, and all the knowledge of their culture, from the fifteen hundred years since humans had settled the Citadel system were at everyone’s fingertips. He understood intellectually they had riches of knowledge that people would kill for, he just never thought anyone actually _would_ kill for it, at least not on this scale. 

He certainly never thought someone would destroy a world just to steal their secrets. But anyone who would cause such destruction, who would modify one Citadel’s most unfortunate discoveries, Apraxix9, against its people to take that knowledge, rather than asking, could not be trusted with it. Who knew who they would oppress, destroy, obliterate? And so, the failsafe was the only option left.

Time blurred after that. This wasn’t his job, wasn’t what he had trained for, he knew the theory, knew the procedures, but he’d never practiced, and certainly hadn’t ever tried doing this to time! He was distantly aware of the thunderous booms and crashes of explosives against the door, a few lingering distant death cries, shouts and grunts of their attackers. He stumbled up the steps of the raised dais in the center of the cylindrical room. The sky burned red outside the windows that ringed all sides of the room, even the windows above the great door were tinged with spreading oily black smoke and flickering flames. The dancing light cast fluid shadows against the pearlescent, domed ceiling high above. At the top of the dais, was the throne, no one ruled from it, instead, it served as a control chair for the planetary defenses, computers, datastorage, and the failsafe.

All of Citadel’s knowledge was stored on multilayered datacubes, each cube locked in a programmed crystal box. There were hundreds of thousands spread throughout Citadel’s two planets. The datacubes could be networked and together comprised Citadel’s Codex, not a _book_ but an electronic repository of their people’s entire knowledge, history, science, engineering, and philosophy. Each box and cube could only be unlocked with a key, but in the face of overwhelming danger, all of the boxes, every single one, could use the other feature of its programming, a microscopic subspace generator, to open a window into subspace and disappear. All the boxes could be controlled with a single command from the command throne. Once given, the boxes would disappear, whisked into subspace to travel through the fabric of spacetime with a randomized pattern that would take them far away from the Citadel system. Each box with its contained cube would move on a preprogrammed schedule, popping out of subspace every once in a while for someone with the knowledge and skill to find it, open it, and return it secrets to the universe. 

The chair spun and rocked slightly as Jensen sat down, punching in the codes in the two keypads contained in the chair’s arms. As he typed, the chair’s systems read his DNA, scanned the bioelectric key and datacrystal in his right forearm. The failsafe was all set, almost there, one last command to enter, when a panel in front of the chair opened, and the datacube inside levitated to hover in front of him. All he had to do was punch in the final command and touch the crystal key in his arm to the control panel… but an enormous explosion shook the room, shattering the crystalline glass in windows around the dome, as the heavy, metal door bowed inward, and went flying across the room. Jensen ducked—

~~~

Lungs heaving, Jensen awoke in a cold sweat, his body drenched, clothes sopping, entire body shaking.

It wasn’t the worst dream. The memory cut off before the really awful bits. Not that seeing his mother die, watching his planet be destroyed as everyone he’d ever known and loved and hundreds of thousands more beside died horrible, agonizing deaths wasn’t bad. But compared to what came after…

Jensen’s subconscious had saved him the worst of the torture tonight. He knew from long experience that wouldn’t last.

“Karen, time?” he rasped sitting up in his bunk, taking deep breaths, hoping to calm his heart rate.

“It is 0435,” she replied.

He grabbed at his shirt and pulled it off dabbing ineffectually at the sweat collected on his head and torso before tossing the wet garment aside in the general direction of the laundry chute. “I’ll get that later,” he said to Karen, reassuring. His AI companion really did not approve of his making a mess of the ship. “Any signs of movement from our guests?”

“Connell and Calvert had a meeting at 0200. They kept their voices low, and I could not record or make out what was said. After 20 minutes, Connell went back to her assigned quarters, but Calvert returned to their shuttle.”

“He sleeping?” Jensen asked, as he stood and crossed his cabin towards the small bath. There was no way he was going back to sleep covered in salty sweat, and no way he would risk presenting himself as he was to any of the Imperials. He stripped the rest of the way and stepped under the sterilized water stream, turning the pressurized, low flow tap as hot as possible to melt away the feeling of sickness and death that clung to him after dreams about Citadel.

“I cannot tell,” Karen replied after a moment. “The shuttle’s shielding keeps me from getting anything more than the most rudimentary readings. I can tell there is a lifesign aboard, and the only individual who has entered the vessel is Calvert. Beyond that, I don’t know. Connell does appear to be sleeping, though.”

Jensen nodded to himself. “Good.” He shuddered at the thought of Connell roaming the _Diligent_ herself. Something about the severity of her demeanor sent shivers up his spine, and that was even without knowing she was a Central Imp spy. “How ‘bout their bumbling apprentice?” 

“Jared is in the galley eating dry noodles.” 

“What?”

“I wouldn’t share with him where any of the fresh food is. He appears to be an insomniac. After turning in at 1100 hours, he rose at 0130 and has been in the galley ever since. He appears to be trying to glean information about you, but I have been quite unwilling to share.”

“Thanks Karen,” Jensen said as he stepped out of the shower and turned on the drying function, hot jets of compressed air buffeting him from all sides until his skin was dry. He crossed to the cabinet where his clothes were stored and pulled out a soft, flexible, pair of loose trousers, boxer shorts, and a close-fitting, high-necked, long sleeved shirt. He dressed without looking at himself, crossed back to the bed, and lay down. “Any sign of what they’re looking for?”

“They seem to be deploying sensors in a standard grid search pattern taking horizontal slices of space and scanning at 20 minute intervals. Their pattern and several offhanded comments make me think they are searching for subspace windows, but I do not have confirmation.”

“So, either they’re onto me, or they’re worried I’m onto them,” he replied.

“Or they’re looking for something else entirely, but the odds of that are too small to mention,” Karen confirmed.

Jensen let out a long shaky sigh. _Just great._ He’d have to step up his own search pattern or tweak the _Diligent’s_ shields so he could run passive sweeps and avoid detection. Of course, he did have the advantage of some knowledge of the randomization program and could time his searches for the most likely windows when datacubes might be popping out of subspace. Still… “Have you wiped our sensor logs and travel history?”

“Altered, not wiped, the actual data has been downloaded to your personal datapad and biolocked for your eyes only.”

“Thanks, Karen.” He let out another long sigh, steadying himself and leaned back onto the slightly damp sheets. “Wake me in an hour or if anyone moves.”

“You got it, boss,” Karen replied.

***  
***


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

“Mr. Klesa,” Connell said, startling Jensen out of his reverie with her thinly veiled insult, refusing to call him “Captain,” even though it was _Jensen_ ’s ship. He was sitting at his console on the bridge, back to the door. He hadn’t heard Connell enter or approach. That his situational awareness was so far off that he hadn’t heard her enter was nothing short of horrifying.

He glanced down at the screen before him finding Karen had stealthily replaced the gravimetric current map with a space dust particle count study for the Proxima system. Deep down he doubted Karen had been quick enough, because _she_ hadn’t warned Jensen of Connell’s approach, meaning Connell had somehow surprised his AI.

The Imperial spies had been aboard for five days. So far they kept mostly to their skiff-class shuttle, the galley, and the empty crew quarters Jensen had offered as temporary housing, all of them moving about with tablets in hand, following datastreams rendered in what appeared to be encrypted Central Imperial script, meaning Jensen had only caught a fraction of what they were reviewing. 

Calvert kept mostly to himself aboard the shuttle, leaving only to consult the console in the _Diligent’s_ ventral observation capsule that Jensen had hooked in to the ship’s primary and secondary sensor arrays. 

Connell had been acting as the spokesperson for the delegation, unsurprising, given she was their Commander, coming to Jensen periodically throughout the day and evening to request access to different resources or sensors or to let the shuttle interface directly with the _Diligent_ ’s computer. Each time she asked for resources there was a plausible innocent explanation that pointed towards resource exploitation and tracking, but each and every request also had an explanation that leaned toward subspace mapping, searching for subspace inversions, or energy signature tracking, which alarmed Jensen as it suggested the Central Empire, either now or at some time in the past, had been in the presence of a datacube long enough to record is unique energy signature. 

While Calvert and Connell conducted their searches, Jared had stuck mostly to the galley, ostensibly completing paperwork and reports on a handheld tablet and asking Jensen innocent-but-probing questions about his work, the ship, and the capabilities of his AI. 

Karen had kept mostly to herself, and Jensen had kept his answers as monosyllabic as possible, hiding behind the plausible excuse of mostly working on solitary cargo runs and being rather out of practice of talking to people.

Every second since the trio had come aboard, Jensen’s general anxiety level had ratcheted inexorably higher and higher as he remained constantly on guard, careful to keep his most concealing and nondescript clothes on at all times. Crew necks or high collars, long sleeves, long pants. Socks. Shoes. After Connell had come to his quarters and woken him at 0330 on the second night he’d taken to wearing socks to bed to avoid any chance a glimpse of exposed skin would give him away.

“Yes?” he asked, turning in his seat to face Connell, mindful not to bark his bad shin on the console or chair this time.

Connell smiled, a glint of victory or pleasure flashing across her expression, probably realizing she had surprised him. Had she seen what was on the console? How had she evaded Karen? More importantly, assuming she _had_ seen the console screen, had she understood its significance.

“We need to take our shuttle out to run some additional scans in realspace, but before we do so, we need you to reposition the _Diligent_.”

“Are you asking me to make a subspace hop? Because I’m in the middle of a review of a space dust survey for our current sector, and was planning to take in the sights with the aid of some magnification—there’s an amazing set of solar wind currents that move ions and particulate matter through this area. It’s supposed to be beautiful.”

Connell’s smile narrowed, her eyes boring into Jensen. “I’m happy to say it is very important that you achieve the repositioning in realspace. A subspace window could _disrupt_ the study were are conducting. We just need a different vantage point.” She smiled, this expression fake and very forced, “I’m quite confident you’ll find the new position offers an even better view of the currents.” Without asking permission, Connell stepped off the stairs and crossed the bridge, glancing at the consoles as she passed. When she reached Jensen she held out her tablet for him to see. 

“It will take at least 5 hours to reach the coordinates, so I do insist we leave now.” 

For a moment Jensen didn’t respond, stunned as he was by the coordinates. He covered, attempting to brush his shock off as scrutiny of the proposed map. “I’m pretty confident I can make it there in a little over four hours, in fact.” He looked up at Connell and smiled.

He expression was still skeptical, the same shrewd, piercing look in her eyes, as she’d had when she came aboard and when she’d entered the bridge. He had a feeling she saw through him far too much. What conclusions she drew he couldn’t know. He certainly hoped she was connecting the dots and thinking opportunistic treasure hunter and not last scion of the Royal Family of Citadel.

“Well then,” Connell replied. “Let’s get underway.” Without another word, she turned and exited the bridge as silently as she had come. 

Jensen sat frozen for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. When he could breathe again, he pulled up the navigational array and entered the new coordinates, plotting the course that would get them to the new destination in a little _under_ four hours. He needed the extra speed so he could run a few more scans before they arrived properly. They’d approach the coordinates at a nice and leisurely pace arriving on the schedule he’d told Connell.

The coordinates were those he had visited before. Two weeks ago. His scans then had detected evidence of a recent subspace window and the unmistakable energy signature of a Citadel datacube. They were going back, and undoubtedly the Imperials had sensors that would be able to pick up the same traces he had, even after all this time. Did they think they could reopen the subspace window and retrieve the cube? Did they realize the cube would have long since moved on? Were they hoping to somehow _track_ the cube’s movements in subspace? Or maybe lie in wait in case any other cubes opened the same window? How had the Imperials found it? Had he given it away? Had they made it through his firewall and found the location or the scans in the ship’s logs?

“Karen?” he asked, his voice barely registering.

“Yes, boss?” 

“Do they know?”

“About the cubes? I’ve drawn the same conclusions I’m sure you have. About you? I can only hope not as I’ve no doubt Calvert would try to finish the job on your arm following the same theory that removing the key from a still-living host might leave it functional. I was able to observe search terms and queries on his pad that suggest he believes the Apraxix9 was responsible for key deactivation during the massacre.

“My observations of Connell suggest she would be far more cautious and likely suspects removal of the key might render it inert. If she were to suspect, she would seek to keep you alive but subdued in order to guarantee viability of your key.”

“And Jared?” Jensen asked, mind tracking to the mysterious, hard-to-read member of the delegation.

“I do not know,” Karen admitted.

“Neither do I,” Jensen admitted. Shaking himself, he added, “Karen? How the hell did Connell get on the bridge?”

“She would appear to have a personal stealth field generator and the ship’s logs would suggest fairly advanced training in Imperial Code slicing.”

“Has she breached our firewalls?” Jensen asked, holding his breath.

There was a pause while Karen ran through billions, possibly trillions of lines of the _Diligent_ ’s code. “Not that I can tell. There are records of a handful of attempted slices, but none in the last three days and no indication of any successful intrusion.”

“Let’s keep our secrets buried a little deeper, okay?” 

“Already done, boss,” Karen reassured.

Only it was anything _but_ reassuring. He had enemies aboard his ship. And try as he might to live in obscurity, he had a sacred duty to Citadel that was being directly threatened, and he had no idea of how to stop it.

***  
***


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Awareness filtered in slowly. This time, Jensen’s waking wasn’t sudden or shocking; instead he drifted from the formless possibility of futures that made the world of sleep across the threshold into the world of waking.

In his mind’s eye, he could still see his mother standing over him, talking to him with her reassuring, calm, confident tone that let him know everything would always be all right in the universe. For once, it was the mother of his boyhood, not his mother as she had been on that last day, the horror of fear and pain and death clinging to her and coloring everything Jensen knew. 

In his dream, his mother had been talking about the Codex and the history of their people. He’d asked, “but why would they want to put the Codex _in_ someone? It’s like a book or a giant computer, right, how does that fit in a person.”

His mother had smiled at him, leaned forward, and brushed a lock of fine blonde hair out of his eyes. “Not the Codex, sweetie, just a key. You’re right, the Codex is a lot of knowledge, all our knowledge, everything we have learned about life, biology, peace, war, science, weapons, history, love, every single discovery and event since our people came to this system all in one place. It’s important knowledge we don’t want to lose. But it’s also dangerous… not everything that has happened to us has been good, and some of the good things we have discovered could be used to hurt people too. So, a long time ago, the people of Citadel got together and talked about what to do, how to preserve the knowledge and ensure it was used for good, not evil.”

She had looked at Jensen more intently at that moment, shifting so she could look into his eyes as she spoke. “Some people thought we should destroy the knowledge, or only keep the good stuff. But there was a lot of debate, because the good stuff could be used for bad, and some of the bad stuff might save someone’s life someday. They decided it was folly to try to predict the future, and the people agreed the knowledge must be saved. But they couldn’t agree on how to protect that knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. Some people thought we should share everything with everyone, that the volume of knowledge and the benefits of free discourse would help us to establish a balance. Other people thought we should lock it all up. The debate went on for weeks and the people grew restless. They missed their families and feared their important work would suffer in their absence. Then one day the daughter of one of the councilor’s aids came to the forum to join her father for lunch. She was maybe 10 years old, but she was a very bright young girl, already gifted in genetics and computer science, studying topics years ahead of others her age. The story is, the girl learned about the debate, and said, ‘why don’t you use a key?’ The debate stopped and the chair of the council turned to her and asked what she meant. She suggested they share the information, but lock the most vital bits away, but not permanently, secured instead with a key, so even the locked information could be shared with the universe if it was needed, and so more information could be secured behind the lock if there was a need. The council liked this idea, but they feared a key would be lost and a password forgotten or hacked. She spoke up again and said _people_ could be the key. The key could never be lost or forgotten because it would be a part of someone. And then she showed them a presentation of the solid crystal bioengineering project she was doing at the academy. And the entire council was in awe.”

Jensen had giggled at that part, imagining a little girl, hardly older than him, making all the important grown ups of the world shocked and surprised.

“But people were still scared about who would get the key or people stealing it, so the girl told them the key could be a part of people, and it should only go to those to those who were willing to dedicate themselves to keeping the information safe. And the girl and her family were the first people to receive the key. And over the generations they have passed it down to their descendants as have the descendants of the others who pledged themselves to protect the Citadel Codex. And it was very, very important that the girl and her family were not of the original Council, but from those who entered into public service out of a desire to _serve_ citadel and her people, not those who sought to wield power and control. That distinction is what makes our monarchy so special. The leaders are those who desire only to serve, to accept Citadel’s guidance.”

“So we’re related to the little girl?” he’d asked.

“Actually, _we_ are,” his mom had gestured between them. “Your daddy’s family pledged themselves to the service about 200 years later.”

“Right because of heritability and the suitable gene pool, they have to take new pl—pledges over time to ensure genetic drift isn’t a problem, so there isn’t a spe—speciation event?”

“Exactly, darling.”

“But we don’t tell the people outside. They think the key is an implant?”

His mother had hugged him tight. “That’s right. They think our keys are connected to us, but separate, not a part of our genetic makeup, our very being. Genetic engineering and bioinformatics are part of the special knowledge we developed on Citadel, and we have to be very careful about who has that information because it is so powerful, and because knowing it would reveal Citadel developed certain technologies hundreds of years before the rest of the galaxy. It might make them wonder why and want to take the technology for themselves without understanding the balance necessary.” 

Looking back, Jensen couldn’t help but wonder if there had been some inkling then of the covetous jealousy Citadel’s knowledge and technology would inspire. Had she realized their secrecy put them at risk, first to those who thought they could steal technology and implant the special keys to knowledge like one would implant any sort of cybernetic mod, and then by those who wanted to dissect them, study them and unlock the secrets of their genome to ensure the power of the keybearers could be replicated in others?

“But I haven’t pledged myself,” young Jensen had observed.

“We pass on the key to our children. Like you said, it’s a heritable trait. And when each child comes of age, they have the choice to pledge to defend Citadel and the Codex. There is no service without choice. No safety without consent.”

“And when I come of age?”

“You’ll get to choose.”

“And if I say ‘no’?”

“If someone choses not to make the pledge, they can take the gene therapy to render their key inert. It’s an intensive process, but it is important and revered in our society. We respect the wishes and choices of everyone to ensure that our knowledge and people are safe.”

“I won’t say, ‘no,’ Mama. I won’t ever say ‘no.’”

The last of the superimposed dream drifted from Jensen’s sleep-drunk mind as the last vestiges of awareness filtered in. For once, he was not drenched in sweat. Instead he was filled with a heavy sense of dread and the unbearable weight of purpose. 

He held up his hands, arms outstretched above him, as he stared up at the ceiling. The dim light of the cabin glinted off the silvery scars on his right arm. The perpetual question mark, the remembered pain of the insurgent’s blade slicing deep into bone and crystal, while the virus ate his legs alive. In their combined ignorance and greed, had they damaged his key? Was he still a keybearer? Would it still work? Or had the Imperial operative’s plasma scalpel deactivated the key, acting much like the gene therapy that would have rendered the crystal inert had he opted not to pledge his loyalty and life to the service of Citadel? There was no good way to test it, not without risking spilling Citadel’s secrets to the whole galaxy and opening himself up to an eternity of vivisection and experimentation should anyone realize what Jensen was.

But not knowing wasn’t any better. He still had to live as if the key did work, and well, damaged or not, he still held within him Citadel’s greatest secret.

Knowing what he did now, having seen his people’s fate played out in the most gruesome way possible, if given the choice again, would he still say “yes”? Still accept the responsibility and make the pledge?

If he hadn’t pledged, he would probably be dead. One of the billions to die with his world either in the initial spread of the Apraxix9 bioweapon or the orbital bombardment, or if not then, in the ensuing cataclysm while their binary worlds tore themselves apart in response to the disruption and destruction of the ecosystem’s symbiosis and equilibrium. 

But if he hadn’t died and had made it off planet, then, well… maybe he could have had a life. Sure refugees from Citadel were few and far between and regarded in the broader community either as a curiosity or a tragedy, but even with the sort of attention those attitudes brought, Jensen still could have had a life—interacted with people, maybe made friends, even fallen in love. Instead, the secrets he held inside his own body kept him apart, his self-imposed exile the only thing standing between Citadel and total destruction. Because even if her people and unique symbiotic environment were lost, her knowledge and history had the ability to live on.

_Maybe_. 

If the key still worked.

If he could find a datacube before the others.

If no one figure out a way to hack the system in the meantime.

If he lived long enough without discovery.

And every day, he asked himself, was it worth it?

Even now, with the Imperials on his ship, the answer was still…

_Yes_.

***  
***


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Jensen wouldn’t say he was _plagued_ by flashbacks and memories, but the constant game of cat-and-mouse he was playing with Connell and her subordinates was exhausting, and the intensified focus on finding the data cubes was keeping his memories of Citadel close to the surface. It seemed like every time he closed his eyes he was treated to yet another memory in dream form. Some were bad, some not so bad, every single one reinforced and underscored the desperation he felt.

He had to find a cube and find it first. 

Karen kept tabs on their guests as Connell continued to direct them around the system. Never entering subspace, never doing anything that could disrupt the subspace signatures of datacubes. 

And the course they were following was good, the pattern possibly more efficient than the one he had been using. Jensen couldn’t help but wonder if one of the Imperials had some inside knowledge of the cubes. How, he wasn’t sure, and who, he was even less certain.

Each of the three imperial guests presented their own perspective and threats. Jensen had no doubt the personas each projected were—at least in some way—false. But he also couldn’t be sure _what_ their actual mission was or even if they were all on the same side. 

Connell was intelligent, savvy, guarded, and commanding. He was confident she knew he had been looking for datacubes, but didn’t know if she knew anything _else_.

Calvert felt the most dangerous. Underneath the veneer of dutiful and intelligent subordinate, Jensen had no doubt Calvert would disobey orders and do his own thing if he thought he was right. He was arrogant, hateful, and frighteningly competent. Every interaction he had with Jensen was dripping with disdain and superiority. He got the sense Calvert was frustrated with Connell’s relatively conservative and methodical approach and, if given the opportunity would do something drastic to find the cubes. Jensen didn’t know what that would look like, but he was terrified of Calvert, perceived him as a direct personal threat, and was very, very grateful that, so far, at least, Calvert had never been left alone on the _Diligent_ with him. Even with Karen as backup, Jensen genuinely feared for his continued survival should he ever be alone with Calvert.

Jared, well, he was an enigma. Jensen knew the persona Jared presented was false, but Jensen also couldn’t tell for whose benefit the false persona was intended. Was Jared deceiving, or attempting to deceive, Connell or Calvert? Was he using his seemingly bumbling nature to put Jensen at ease in order to more easily gather intelligence? Both? Neither? Jensen couldn’t get a read on him, even though Jared was the one Imperial who was most often alone on the _Diligent_ with Jensen.

The Imperials frequently went off in their shuttle to “gather data,” but, unsurprisingly, they never left Jensen alone. Sometimes Connell would stay to “direct” the mission remotely, but more often Connell took Calvert out in the shuttle leaving Jared behind. It made sense on paper at least, as a diplomatic trainee, Jared presumably would not have the scientific expertise or military training Calvert and Connell were presumably using. Babysitting duty also kept Jared’s apparent klutziness from adversely impacting the Imperials’ mission.

But even when all three of them were on the ship, Jared was the one always out and about. He seldom returned to the Imperial shuttle and spent a lot of time in the galley reading and preparing reports. He’d also taken to popping up in different places through out the day, venturing out of the Imperials’ designated space more and more. Jensen thought Jared might have been following him, but he couldn’t tell. Jared always seemed to have a good reason for being where he was. It was unnerving.

Worse, Jensen couldn’t shake the feeling of being drawn to Jared. He wasn’t sure if it was Jared’s apparently genuine good humor and helpfulness or the enigmatic mystery he presented, but Jensen wanted to know more. He wanted to understand. And every time Jared tried to, often awkwardly, strike up a conversation, Jensen found himself responding, even against his own better judgment. He just wished he knew _why_.

When Jared finally did follow him a few days later, Jensen wished he’d been a little less curious and a little more cautious.

***

“You were at Citadel.”

The words didn’t register when they were spoken. Jensen just stared blankly. unable to process what he had heard. He kept working, hands manipulating his tools, concentration steadfast on the open access hatch before him. His mind was playing tricks on him. If someone had spoken those words, they were directed at someone else. He was rewiring the back-up emergency hatch release, nothing to see here, move along...

Silence stretched, and Jensen’s heart had just begun to release from its perch in his throat, his pulse slowly receding to a rate not suited for an old Earth hummingbird. 

“You were at the battle of Citadel,” Jared said again, his voice pitched low and directed directly at Jensen. It sounded different too... Jensen couldn’t quite place it, but it was a familiar change somehow. The playful innocence was gone, and what was left, was certain, calculating

Silence stretched again. There was no inauspicious way Jensen could ignore it. He wasn’t deaf, and Jared knew that. The second statement was directed solely at him, and there was no one else around. And wasn’t that just fabulous! What kind of rookie move had led him to let his guard down, enough that he was alone in the engineering bay, near so many tools and nice emergency release with no one else around. It would be so easy to space him, for him to have an unfortunate accident with no witnesses and no one to help? He’d even decided to upgrade the wiring when Karen was running a system update, the AI equivalent of crashing for a long, well-earned, marathon-length nap after a week of insomnia, so even _she_ couldn’t come to his aid.

Shit.

Slowly, carefully, and keeping his hands steady, the wire stripper still clutched in his right hand, partially concealed, he turned to face his accuser. And shit, Jared was mere inches away. “Why would you say something like that?”

Jared’s eyes flicked to Jensen’s right hand. “Your right hand was reconstructed using pins and wires, an old-fashioned technique typically used on smaller planets, territories that emulate old Earth, and by backwater and black-market physicians who don’t have access to more modern techniques. But the scars on your hand are almost imperceptible to the naked eye, and hand function was restored to something far higher than should be possible given the severity of the injury, which points to hybrid techniques. Perhaps a Venian doctor on a refugee and relief ship, someone skilled with a wide range of treatments and methodologies, but also equipped with state-of-the art drugs, yet still limited in the surgical theater and equipment available to them.”

“There are a lot of places that still use fixation techniques. Doesn’t mean I was on a Venian-run refugee ship,” Jensen gritted out, his heart still pounding. He wanted to deny it outright. His hand was normal, never injured, thank you, nothing to see here, but he couldn’t. Jared’s eyes were tracking right along the surgical scar on the back if his index finger, fixating on the tiny bump just past the knuckle where one of the retained pins was prominent enough to feel. Although, it appeared Jared could _see_ it too. A denial now would make Jensen look guilty. When Jared didn’t speak again, he added, “Did you ever stop to think maybe I can’t afford anything more sophisticated.

Jared’s head cocked in consideration and he nodded, almost differentially before continuing. “That is possible, but it’s not the case here. No,” he shook his head, more certain, “you could absolutely afford more modern treatment. But with your hand you didn’t need to. Actually, had it been available, you would have taken it, but this was your only option. By the time you reached a fully equipped hospital, your hand was healed. They would have told you, truthfully, that operating again at that point would have made things worse, and your function was so close to perfect, the result was as good as could have been expected with more modern techniques.”

Jensen regarded Jared with extreme skepticism before he let out a bark of laughter. He hoped it sounded as if he thought the whole thing was preposterous rather than he was terrified. “Why concoct such a ridiculous story? Why would you think I could afford—”

But Jared cut him off, a hint of impatience creeping in. “Because you have class VII, military-grade neural and structural implants in your leg. Your leg, your hand, probably some other injuries we can’t see since you wear long sleeves, higher necklines, long pants—even when the environmental controls are malfunctioning and you’re not engaged in any mechanical repairs—and the injuries are the same age. More than that, they’re all 15 years old.” Jared gave another nod and focused in a way that suggested he was seeing levels of detail that shouldn’t be possible with the naked eye. “Your leg wasn’t treated on the Venian refugee ship though. Your ankle, when it’s been exposed, there’s no scalpel scarring, not even that’s been healed with regenerative drugs like your hand. They didn’t treat your leg because they couldn’t. Apraxix9 was the biological weapon unleashed on the population of Citadel. It’s a demyelenator, it stripped nerves then destroys them, dissolved neural pathways in the brain, capable of killing or permanently incapacitating in seconds. Now, the Imperial insurgents used the gas form in the battle once the Republic relief forces arrived, so you weren’t in that part of the battle because a hit with that, and you’d be brain dead. No, you were there earlier, part of the on-ground fighting when they were using liquids, tainting the water supply, coating bullets, firing grenades. So only your leg was exposed. The Venians couldn’t do anything but keep you from bleeding out or going into neurogenic shock. But when the ships reached Campus, you were able to get transferred to the Republic Navy Medical Corps and get some of the most expensive treatment there is. For most they would have given you a cybernetic prosthesis, but instead, they tried to restore your physical body as much as possible. And they gave you a class of implants that weren’t released to their own special forces for another two years. So, to the contrary, you were both very wealthy and someone they went out of their way to help. 

“Of course by the time you got treatment from the Corps it had been six months. You were already used to getting around without the use of your leg, so your body mechanics were all fucked up, and your brain... well the leg works perfectly, but you still limp because the brain to machine neural bridge has difficulty functioning due to the degree of neural pathway atrophy. You’ve had a lot of therapy, but at some point you decided you don’t care. It’s a badge, a scar, a reminder of who you really are, and you need the reminder to function.”

Jared had stopped talking at last. He was staring intently at Jensen, but there was no hint of smugness in his expression, just calm, clear certainty. This wasn’t the slightly clueless young man who seemed more of a burden than an asset to the Imperial delegation. Nor was he a bumbling paper-pusher or a politically appointed supervisor, or any of the other roles Lieutenant Calvert had insinuated was Jared’s real purpose. “You’re not an apprentice trainee and you certainly aren’t Imperial. Republic Intelligence Service?” Jensen asked it as a question, but it was rhetorical. Jared had, intentionally, given himself away a dozen ways over, not the least of which with some of his head-tilting mannerisms (not Imperial) and the now-obvious use of ocular implants. 

“Commander Jared Padelecki, Special Division,” he admitted, extending his hand to Jensen.

Jensen hesitated then reached out and took Jared’s hand with his own, wondering what Jared’s bioaugmentations were picking up through this simple handshake. Shit! Jared had been onto him since the second he stepped on the ship.

“You were what, 20, 22 when Citadel happened?” Jared asked in an almost non-sequitur.

“Twenty-five,” Jensen countered, realizing a split second too late that he’d answered honestly.

Jared’s eyes widened slightly and a flicker of genuine surprise washed over his features. “So you are him. This is... I thought so from the moment I saw you, but the Service is insistent that you never made it off the planet.”

Jared might have kept speaking, but if he did, his words did not register. All Jensen was aware of was the pounding of his heart, the sound of blood rushing in his ears, the constricting sensation of too little air making it in and out of his chest. Fifteen years of hiding, fifteen years of making sure every trace or connection to his old life was as buried as it could possibly be. Sure, his actions, coming into the unclaimed sectors, looking for signs of the arc-buoys, naming his ship _Requiem_ , even using part of his actual name, were risky, a mix of taunting authority and death seeking he couldn’t quite resist. But that was a mitigated risk. There was nothing in his traceable profile to connect him to his past and no one besides him, Karen, and a droid clerk in the Avalon central registry office who’d suffered a 32-second memory glitch shortly thereafter had ever learned the _Requiem’s_ real name. (To everyone else she was the _Diligent_ or one of a dozen other aliases.)

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Jensen managed at last, forcing words out around the lump in his throat. He didn’t know what Jared’s combat specs were, but he could manage to get a lot of extra power and strength out of his bad leg if he needed to. He dug his heel in hard, pushed against his torso with his elbow, and thought “on” as vigorously as he could. After far too long a delay, during which time he gritted his teeth and hoped he looked defiant or perplexed rather than terrified or constipated, at last he felt the additional nanomotors engage, the structural grafting excreting a combination of adrenaline and bioenhancers to boost his strength and agility. The nanotech seemed to activate in a wave that swept up his spine reaching just below his shoulder blades. He’d forgotten how far up they went. 

“No, Jensen,” Jared replied, his voice soft, “I’m really not.” 

And there it was. His name. In his mind, it was still him, still his identity, but he hadn’t heard it spoken in almost 15 years. He froze, shock blotting out fear. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe... he’d given himself away a million times over. Even he’d managed to keep emotion from his face (he hadn’t), an RIS SpecDev operative had the training to read his microexpressions and the tech to catalogue every miniscule change in his blood pressure, pupil dilation, heart rate. His reaction was all the confirmation Jared needed. 

“You’ll never prove it.” 

At that, Jared gave a little snort. “Someone still has your DNA on file somewhere. We both know why you couldn’t alter it.”

Fear lanced through Jensen’s gut wondering if Jared knew the _extent_ to which that statement was true. Jensen shifted his weight preparing to push off.

Jared planted a hand against his chest and pushed... not hard, but enough to hint at the immovability behind it. “My entire skeleton is Mark VII enhanced, and unlike you, I don’t turn it off.”

“I’ll tell the Imperials who you really are, and I can flood this compartment with radiation and blow the hatch. We both die—” on second thought, “—or it would at least be unpleasant for you and it would render my body useless and unreachable,” Jensen threatened, moving his left hand towards the wall panel. It would be a bit harder than he described with the current state of the wiring, but Jared didn’t know that.

Jared lowered his hand. “I have no desire to turn you over to my government or the Imperials. And if I’d wanted to kill you, I could have done it a thousand times over.”

That much was true. Jensen had been alone with Jared, asleep essentially unguarded... If Jared had known since stepping aboard, there were countless moments he could have struck. But he hadn’t. The question was, why? “What do you want?” 

Jared visibly relaxed and took a few steps back. “For you not to hurt yourself for one thing. You know, you’re not supposed to turn the implants off.”

“I don’t turn them off, just down.” 

“And that’s probably part of your problem. You’ll never achieve full integration that way.”

Jensen started to protest, but Jared held up his hands in a sign of surrender. 

“I know you probably have good reasons, and that’s beside the point. If you’d asked me what I wanted when I received this assignment, I’d have said I wanted to make sure any Intel the Imperials received made it back to my government first or exclusively.”

Jensen’s head snapped up, and he subconsciously shifted weight back to his bad leg, which was still at full power. “You were sent here to kill them, but you want me to believe you won’t kill me? So, I’m going to be your prisoner—” his hand was already moving back to the panel.

“You weren’t supposed to be a part of this. The _Iscariot_ was programmed to search for any ships in the unclaimed sector and the exclusion zone. If they found any they were either supposed to order them away, commandeer them, or destroy them.” He shuddered, “I’m pretty sure Lieutenant Calvert would just destroy all of them if give the opportunity, and I am certain it’s his plan before the Imps leave _here._ But, you were a surprise because your vessel was travelling in realspace already. That made Connell suspicious, and threw a spanner in the works, because with an Avalon-registered vessel traveling to contiguous points in the Proxima system, the Imps have no real authority to order you out. And your behavior was too suspicious to ignore. They couldn’t take the chance you were either looking for the same thing they were or that if you weren’t looking for it, you would find their behavior suspicious. And they could have destroyed you, but you would have taken the mystery of your unusual behavior with you, and that wasn’t acceptable. So, they came up with a ruse, and I managed to get myself inserted into the plan, because if Connell had had her way, she would have just taken Calvert and had me stay on the _Iscariot_ to continue the search. And forget about my orders, she would have probably spaced you after a nice, unsubtle interrogation. I had to convince her that the sensor package on this ship was more efficient than the _Iscariot_ and sabotage the _Iscariot_ ‘s stealth field generator, otherwise the ship would have stayed on the hunt, and I couldn’t have been in two places at once. But I didn’t expect you. Then we came through the airlock and you were standing on the other side of the door, and for the first time since I joined the RIS, I wasn’t sure I could follow the mission.”

“Why?” Jensen breathed.

“Because the information on the datacubes isn’t mine by right, and neither the Empire or the Republic has any right to it. Seeing you reminded me of that. If Citadel is just a cautionary tale about a tragedy that happened to a people that don’t exist anymore, then it’s easy to be callous, but not with you here. And because I want to know the truth, and I think the universe might be better off of everyone else knew it too.”

Jensen let out the breath he’d been holding and let his hand fall back to his side as he leaned back against the bulkhead. “Why tell me? Why confront me now?”

“Because I couldn’t dismiss the signs any longer, and because if I’m reading you right there’s a good chance we’re close to one of the cubes.”

Jensen nodded, but he could tell Jared was holding something back, “And?”

“And Calvert has a weapon designed to create subspace inversions. He doesn’t have authorization from Connell, but he’s figured out how to use it to force things out of subspace. Sooner or later he’s going to get impatient and turn it on. And when he does—”

“Any data cubes in its path will be sucked into realspace along with any ships traveling through the area and anything else in subspace. If we’re lucky, the Empire just gets all the datacubes, and if we’re not, they get the cubes and cause untold destruction.”

***  
***


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The more time they spent together working on the algorithm, the closer Jensen felt. Jared, once he dropped the over-eager but naive apprentice act, was kind, thoughtful, and smart. It took Jensen a while to get used to Jared raising and lowering his mask whenever Connell and Calvert were around, but after a couple of days, Karen butted in and suggested she could aid Jared by acting as a lookout.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“It’s easy to see you acting differently towards Jensen,” Karen had replied, “also only an incompetent idiot would leave herself and her crew unprotected and unobserved while running a status update. If you’d tried anything, you would have found yourself electrocuted and subject to explosive decompression.”

After that, Jared and Karen had made up and acted as co-conspirators, Karen aiding Jared in new ways to stall and deceive Connell and Calvert, while both Karen and Jared aided Jensen in his search.

Jensen thought he heard Jared muttering something about getting “the shovel talk” from an AI, but Jensen wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

One afternoon about ten days after the fateful afternoon in the engine room, Connell and Calvert were both out in the Imperial skiff taking sensor readings on an anomaly, while Jared stayed behind with Jensen under the guise of wanting to work on boosting the sensitivity of the scanners. The “anomaly” was actually a diversion created by Karen to keep the Imps occupied. It would mysteriously dissipate eventually, but not before Connell and Calvert wasted a few hours gingerly flying around in realspace chasing sensor ghosts careful not to disturb anything in subspace.

While the Imperials were occupied, Jared had taken advantage of a time when the predictive model indicated next to zero chance of any subspace inversions in their arc, to help Jensen crunch numbers and map likely inversion points over the next few days.

They were sitting across from each other at the small table in Jensen’s quarters, when their hands brushed, and Jensen felt his heart leap in his chest while his blood flowed unexpectedly to his groin.

Jared had frozen too, his eyes looked unfocused almost dazed and his nostrils flared. 

Jensen blinked, realizing what that meant. Jared could _smell_ his arousal. 

As soon as it had begun the moment was over. Jared jerked back his hand, pushed back his chair and stood. “S—sorry,” he stammered, eyes wild.

“Wait,” Jensen said, looking down at his hands. He hadn’t made a conscious decision to move, but Jared’s left hand was now clasped between both of his. “That wasn’t unwanted, just... unexpected. I didn’t realize I felt that way, and I’ve never...” he didn’t know how to finish that sentence, he’d been in love before, once a long time ago on a dead world. He’d fallen in and out of lust. Had experienced plenty of sexual attraction, but he’d never felt anything so electric. One touch, and a lightning bolt had struck him low in his belly, the sensation radiating out, saturating his groin. He’d never felt anything like it. He didn’t even know what to call it. 

Jared looked confused for a moment, then vaguely horrified, then sheepish. “It’s the implants. They’re designed to promote coupling between compatible individuals. They can sense mutual attraction and can also assess millions of other characteristics—sexual, reproductive, genetic, mental, and philosophical compatibility. If the attraction’s mutual and the compatibility is strong, the implants will let both parties know.”

“So, this feeling is the implants, it’s not real?” Jensen asked sheepishly, he couldn’t bring himself to let go of Jared’s hand. 

“No, it’s all you. And me. It’s real, the implants are just telling us this is a good idea.” Jared’s face twitched and he tried to avert his eyes, but didn’t quite succeed, though his eyelids fluttered, his eyes remained fixed on Jensen. “This is really a really bad idea.”

“No, it isn’t,” Jensen responded, tightening his grasp. “This is amazing. I—”

But this time he didn’t finish his sentence because Jared was kissing him. His lips were warm, and the caress of his tongue was comforting as it licked its way into Jensen’s mouth, seeking entrance. Before he knew it, Jensen was kissing back, lost in the sensation. He breathed in Jared as Jared breathed in him.

Jared’s hands came to Jensen’s shoulders resting stiffly, just cupping them, before he slowly relaxed and wound his arms around Jensen.

As the kiss intensified, Jared squeezed tighter, until he abruptly pulled back. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, besides. I’m a big boy—”

“That’s not— I mean, physically. My entire body is melded with the Mark VII framework. That’s hundreds of times more durable and at least three times stronger than an unaugmented human, I could crush you when I come.”

Jensen got a coy look on his face and bit his lip. “Who says coming is going to be on the menu?”

“The way you’re feeling, could you hold back for anything else?”

And come to think of it, no he couldn’t. Jensen was hard inside his pants despite sporadic at best arousal ever since the accident. He had an overwhelming desire to be penetrated, and even as he stood regarding Jared, his hands were moving to fumble with the fasteners on Jared’s clothes. “No,” he admitted.

“If I... I can help you activate your implants to their fullest extent. That should be enough to keep me from crushing you, but from now on, you’ve got to leave them on, adapt and integrate. If I ramp them up, it could kill you if you try to switch them off. “

Jensen’s hands were already roaming over Jared’s torso, exploring. In the moment, he just wanted to feel, to take it in without worrying about his past or the datacubes or what he owed his family, his people, their history. “Okay,” he breathed at last. “Okay,” he repeated, meeting Jared’s eyes. 

Jared kissed him again and breathed deep. After a moment he pulled back, surveyed Jensen quickly for any hint if uncertainty or distress. Apparently finding none, he got to work with his hands, tugging Jensen’s shirt out from the confines of his waistband and unbuttoning his trousers. 

Jared started to lift Jensen’s shirt, when Jensen flinched. 

Jared froze.

“Wait,” Jensen said, stammering slightly. “I don’t want you to stop, it’s just, no one has seen me, well no one other than doctors and Karen,” Jensen grinned ruefully, “not since Citadel.”

“No one in fifteen years?” Jared asked sounding vaguely horrified.

“I’ve never made love in this body. There was too much risk of someone seeing me and... realizing what it meant.”

Jared stepped back, and for a moment Jensen thought he was going to stop, but instead Jared removed his own shirt. Underneath his chest appeared smooth, hairless, unblemished, and muscular, but then something electronic seemed to ripple, and Jensen noticed tiny, silvery spots all over his chest, abdomen, shoulders, even his neck. They were implant ports. “Camouflage is important, otherwise it would be way too easy to spot an intelligence operative,” Jared explained.

“Could I do that?” Jensen asked, unsure. 

“I don’t know, we’ll have to experiment,” Jared said deviously as he kicked off his shoes, and unfastened his pants, slipping them off and revealing his naked body. His dick was long, thick, and curved slightly to the left as it stood erect and already dripping precome. His body, including his balls, were completely hairless, and Jensen could see the familiar glint of implant portals on his dick, groin, hips, and down his legs. 

“Oh,” Jensen said, releasing one hand and reaching out, fingers brushing against Jared’s thigh. He could understand now, why Jared was so concerned. 

“I have portals everywhere, the soles of my feet, my scalp, even in my nostrils, the insides of my eyelids, my ears,” Jared explained. “But then, I think portals are beautiful, and I can’t wait to see yours.”

Jensen blushed, feeling his body flush from his feet to the tips of his ears. “It’s not the portals I’m worried about.” 

But before he could speak more, Jared stepped close and lifted Jensen’s shirt overhead. He pressed his bare chest to Jensen’s and slid his hands into the waistband of Jensen’s trousers and boxer shorts, slipping both off. Jensen stepped out of his pants pulling his shoes with them as he felt the first warm, damp, brush of Jared’s dick against his.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Jared asked as he stepped back again. 

Jensen froze under the sudden scrutiny, but he was too aroused to be properly afraid. And the point was he didn’t fear Jared or his reaction, there was too much positive reinforcement coming through their contact. It was as if his implants had a sixth sense about Jared, and he realized, belatedly, their implants were communicating.

Jared’s eyes traveled over Jensen’s body beginning at his feet and traveling up. His gaze was cool and assessing, but Jensen could tell Jared wasn’t displeased. Jensen’s left foot and much of the left side of his body, including his entire leg, buttock, groin, and half his abdomen, extending about a third of the way up his back, was mottled in color. No longer in the typical range of skin tones, his skin appeared, pink, purplish, blue, and pale gray in turns. His foot and ankle, by luck, were mostly a slightly orangey pink suggestive of an odd scar or badly done skin graft, which meant the nature of his injury wasn’t readily apparent every time his pants shifted or his socks slipped. Throughout his body, all over both legs, his butt, dick, belly, and torso up to just beneath his pecs in front and his shoulder blades in back, were the same silvery portals. Jared turned Jensen slowly in his arms before returning to his inspection of Jensen’s body above the portals. Here, there were no silvery dots, but Jensen’s chest was crisscrossed with surgical scars and several cuts from the plasma scalpel the Imp-backed invasion forces had used to torture him. The surgical scars had mostly faded, but the plasma slices were still vivid, and Jared traced them, with his fingers an awed expression on his face. 

Jensen’s shoulders and neck were unblemished, but his right arm was a different story. Occupying two thirds of his right forearm was an intricate design in pale blue, the shape somewhere between an old-fashioned key and an old silicon circuit. The key, for that’s what it was, was raised about two millimeters from the skin around it. When pressed it was firm lacking the give of normal skin. 

“It’s one thing to hear about genetically bonded crystalline keys that grow out of one’s arm and quite another to see it,” Jared murmured. “Can you feel this?”

Jensen gasped as Jared traced his fingers along some of the finer branches of the key. “The crystal transmits sensation equivalent to a nerve density ten times that found in ordinary human skin,” Jensen explained. 

Jared’s grin grew, even as his fingers reached the raised red line that bordered the key closest to his wrist. “They crushed your hand to mobilize you, stood on your chest,” his fingers traced healed fractures not visible to those with normal vision, along Jensen’s sternum, clavicle, ribs. “Tried to slice the key out of your arm.”

“More like tried to cut out the section of my arm that contains the key,” Jensen said, stuttering over the slight lie, as he followed Jared’s fingers with his eyes, “the crystal is bonded to bone.” More crystal, actually, but that was one secret farther than he was willing to tell at this point.

“They cut into the bone,” Jared realized as he traced the scar. “Did it damage the key?”

“No way to know, no way to test,” Jensen admitted. “When I kicked them, the scalpel jumped and nicked the crystal. I don’t know what that did to the integrity of the key.”

“There are no portals,” Jared said in wonder.

“Same as with my hand, the surgeon who treated me in secret agreed that we couldn’t risk a bioaugmentations stimulant or any nanoelectric machinery that close to the key. The Venians had biological nerve regeneration solution, they used that to reconnect the nerves, a nonconductive carbonfiber plate to fix the missing bone, and traditional pins and anchors to reattach the ligaments and tendons. Like you said, my arm had healed well by the time I had access to implants.”

“Okay,” Jared said, taking in Jensen’s body again, and pulling him close for another kiss. “So why don’t you use the implants?”

“I do,” protested. “I have to use the implants in my left leg. My leg is completely dead without them, and I need the structural framework because Apraxix9 metabolizes calcium and leaves bones like swiss cheese. My low back, the vertebrae are the same, but the Apraxix9 only sunk deep enough to destroy the nerves and nerve roots on one side. The higher up you go the more superficial the damage, mostly although I had a lot of... plumbing problems before the implants. I just turn on what I need as strong as I need to be normal.”

“But Jensen, it doesn’t work like that. The surgeon ran implants as high as they did because that was the minimum portion of your skeletal structure that could be reinforced and have the implants work properly. They’re not supposed to be run at low power because you need the full intensity to ensure a smooth connection with your brain and natural biochemistry. That’s why you have so much trouble with your limp and why you lose sensation when you take a blow or bump into a desk.”

“How did you?” Jensen asked.

“I could sense the blood pooling under your skin from the fresh contusion when I came onboard, your limp and proprioception improved rapidly after that, I connected the dots,” Jared explained. “And you have implants throughout your body to keep it balanced and ensure your musculoskeletal structures don’t snap or collapse under the additional strength or power demands. It’s really dangerous to ignore the right side of your body just because it is functional without augmentation. You’ve got stress fractures in your pelvis and ribs.” As he spoke, he ran his finger up Jensen’s spine, pressing firmly, his touch questing. “Ah,” he said at last, as his fingers came to rest just below the highest line of portals. 

As he pressed down, Jensen felt something shift and gave out an involuntary gasp. “What is that?”

“Your control center, kind if the heart of your implants, a backdoor that your doctor can manipulate if the system is malfunctioning or you are having trouble with the mental commands.” Jared tapped the back if his head. “Mine is at the base of my skull. Yours is over the T6 vertebra.” He hesitated, “Do I have your permission?”

“What are you going to do?” Jensen asked. 

“Activate the full potential and capacity of your implants, and with your mental concentration and assistance, encourage the structural implants to thread reinforcing carbon nanotubes through the rest if your skeleton, extend sensory nanites as far as they will go.”

“Okay,” Jensen said. “I can think about that, and you can... have my permission.”

This earned Jensen another kiss as Jared pulled him tighter into an embrace and pushed down. 

For a moment, Jensen thought Jared had broken his spine the pressure was so intense. For about ten seconds all sensation below the control center seemed to short out, while everything above it went fuzzy, and his breath seemed to freeze in his chest. Then just as suddenly as it had stopped, sensation returned, only more intense, his arousal doubled, no tripled. He could breathe more easily and his left side and leg felt suddenly more there, real and solid. The subtle imbalance he usually felt and the sluggishness in his muscles was gone. 

“Keep thinking about the implants extending their influence,” Jared murmured. 

Jensen did, hoping he was doing the right thing, thinking correctly, but he must have been doing something right, because Jared seemed to relax against him, pulling him tighter and holding on for the first time since their initial tentative embrace. 

“There you go. Now your old fractures are reinforced and I won’t accidentally crush your heart if I hug you too tight.” As he spoke, Jared’s hands smoothed over Jensen’s body, but their intent had changed, he was caressing, not diagnosing, and Jensen felt his dick harden impossibly further with every gentle sweep of thumbs and brush of fingertips. 

Slowly, Jared started to walk them toward the bed. Lifting Jensen under his hips so he wouldn’t have to depend on his newfound coordination to walk backwards. Jared nudged Jensen’s legs wide until they were wound around Jared’s waist, Jensen’s cock and balls nestled firmly against Jared’s abdomen while Jared’s cock brushed along Jensen’s perineum and up the crease of his ass. 

A rush of warmth flooded Jensen’s groin and ass, as he felt the muscles of his passage relax and go slack as if they were being massaged and stretched. “What—” he started to ask voice cracking.

“Shh, no worries,” Jared whispered as he laid Jensen back on the bunk, carefully sliding him sideways as he knelt between his thighs. “It’s just the implants preparing your body for sex,” he swept his hand over Jensen’s dick, rolled his balls lightly, and reached further back, pressing against his prostate for a jolt if pleasure, and then back to his hole, sliding three fingers inside without a hint of resistance or the pull of friction.

Jensen gasped and writhed in the sudden, unexpected pleasure, bearing down in Jared’s fingers and coaxing them deeper and deeper inside. 

Jared obliged willingly, stroking Jensen’s insides until his knuckles were pressed around the rim, and then pulling out and thrusting back in, he added a fourth finger, as his thumb began to rhythmically stimulate Jensen’s prostate from the outside. 

Jensen clenched and gasped, his body demanding more, more, needing and wanting, but never getting quite enough. 

Jared stopped his assault on Jensen’s prostate so he could tuck his thumb inside, and with a twist of his wrist, slid his whole hand into Jensen’s willing body. He made a fist and opened his hand several times, before pushing in deeper and deeper, until Jensen felt the slightest hint of a burn from where his asshole was stretched around Jared’s forearm. Jared’s arm was a warm and welcome intrusion in Jensen’s body as he massaged Jensen’s prostate again, sending him to the edge of orgasm without touching his dick. Just when Jensen was about to topple over the edge, Jared stilled and slowly withdrew his hand. “I think you’re ready now,” he said, holding up his arm, which was glistening with slick as if it or Jensen’s ass had already been coated with lube. 

“How is that possible?” Jensen asked. 

“Like I said, the implants prepare our bodies for sex. They can sense what we need most to be fulfilled and make sure our bodies can accommodate our needs. Are you ready?”

Jensen nodded, finding himself suddenly nonverbal and utterly in awe. 

Jared was beautiful, and he was looking at Jensen with reverence and wonder, and for the first time since the coup that ended in genocide, Jensen felt whole and connected, not an empty shell. 

Jared guided his dick into Jensen’s body with a long, smooth thrust, not stopping until he had bottomed out. The angle of his dick stroked along Jensen’s prostate again sending electric sizzles up his spine. 

“Oh god, please, more,” Jensen pleaded, “I need more, I need all of you,” he babbled, not even sure what he was saying. Jared’s cock was a very snug fit despite the earlier fisting, and Jensen found himself whimpering with every thrust. 

Jared moved, scooping Jensen’s legs over Jared’s shoulders, folding Jensen in half, as Jared’s dick pressed deeper still. He grasped Jensen’s wrists in each of his powerful hands, pinning them to the bed, his grasp searing like a brand into the crystal key as he thrust into Jensen’s mouth with his tongue.

Jensen’s eyes rolled back in his head as he surrendered to the fugue state. This was what he had needed for so long and never known, someone who knew him, saw him for who he was and who he could be, not what he was in history, respected and loved him unconditionally, and wanted to see Jensen stop causing himself pain, someone who could take the doubt and loneliness away and just let Jensen feel. Within minutes he was coming, his orgasm leaving his body with a small gasp as ropes of come shot out of his weeping, red cock, painting Jared’s neck and both their chests. 

But Jared didn’t stop or falter, and to Jensen’s surprise he didn’t go soft, the intensity ebbed slightly and immediately began to build again as his dick grew even harder. Jared kept kissing him, his fingers gliding over Jensen’s nipples, intensifying his ecstasy. Jared fucked Jensen trough a second orgasm, and then a third, something Jensen had never experienced before. But, as with the ease of preparation, the implants seemed to be able to give him an instantaneous refractory period, keeping his body constantly aroused and always on edge. 

As Jared’s thrusts took Jensen towards a fourth climax, Jared began to shake. His thrusts grew erratic, but somehow even deeper. “Oh god, I’m in love with you,” Jared gasped in surprise, before he bit down on Jensen’s left nipple and began to come.

The shock if vise-like teeth on his sensitive skin combined with the angle of Jared’s thrust and the admission of love, sent Jensen tumbling over the cliff to his fourth orgasm of the afternoon. “I’m in love with you too,” he whispered into Jared’s ear. 

The statement should have been a lie, or at least an exaggeration. They’d met so recently and under such unequal circumstances. They both hid so many secrets from the world… themselves… each other, but their implants allowed them to _see_ into each other, to recognize their similarities, understand their burdens, even glimpse each other’s souls. So, the declaration of love was not premature, but profound. Two individuals from such different backgrounds, set on paths that should have brought them into conflict, but instead finding only peace in each other’s arms.

Jared squeezed him tighter and moaned as his dick continued to shoot ropes of hot, sticky come deep into Jensen’s body. They shook together, their bodies seemingly stuck in a feedback loop until they were well and truly spent, about 10 minutes later. Gradually they both relaxed until Jared rested his head gingerly on Jensen’s chest and they just breathed. Somehow Jared was still hard and still sheathed in Jensen’s willing body.

“I don’t want to leave,” Jared admitted breathlessly. “Being inside you feels right—”

“I don’t want you to leave, but I think we might have to separate long enough to make ourselves presentable and put on our game faces for our Imp spy guests. But you can come back inside me whenever you want,” Jensen answered. 

Jared pushed himself up, careful not to press on Jensen’s chest. He pressed a chaste kiss to Jensen’s forehead. “You really mean that.”

“I haven’t felt this safe or whole since I was a kid,” Jensen admitted. 

“We’re—” Jared broke off. “The implants make sex really intense, and I’d heard, been warned, told, whatever, that if I met someone really compatible it would be more so, but I never imagined it would be like this. There were others, a few people I trained with who were designated as bondmates. I asked what it meant, and the trainers said it was rare, but sometimes two people were so compatible their implants synced and bonded to ensure the couple stayed together. I think—”

“We’re bonded,” Jensen said. Suddenly the situation was ridiculous. “Oh my god, that means you’re the Royal consort of Citadel.” 

“And I can’t do anything that would harm you or your people, the Republic can’t get the datacubes. It can’t get Apraxix9. We have to broadcast the truth.”

“We do,” Jensen agreed. Then smiled, “but first, we need to shower.”

In all his years aboard the _Diligent_ , Jensen had never showered so long that he got a hot water warning, but he did this time, the warning coming as he was on his knees, swallowing down Jared’s second orgasm, as his untouched dick spilled for the fifth time.

From that point on, they kept up appearances, but every night, Jared returned to Jensen’s bed once the Imperials had fallen asleep.

***  
***


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Jared said. They were sitting in the galley, eating porridge. Connell and Calvert were once again off the ship in their skiff tracking more trace emissions.

Karen’s eavesdropping suggested Calvert was getting frustrated and was perilously close to using the subspace inversion bomb. The only saving grace was Connell was worried about collateral damage and hadn’t approved its use. Karen was doing her best to _modify_ and conceal the _Diligent_ ’s systems so Calvert wouldn’t be able to integrate the prototype. They’d have to call in the _Iscariot_ from wherever it had gone, and that should give Jensen at least a little warning.

Of course the warning wouldn’t do much if he couldn’t find a datacube first.

“Jens?” Jared repeated, using the assumed name in the relative exposure of the galley’s public space. Neither of them had dared speak of Jensen’s true identity outside Jensen’s quarters with their triple-layered security after that initial utterance in the engine room. 

“Not here,” Jensen whispered, projecting as much urgency and need for secrecy as he could and hoping Jared’s implants would pick it up. 

The subtle shift in Jared’s expression told him it had worked. “Your quarters,” he murmured as he stood.

Jensen took a moment to gather his thoughts and followed, finding his legs unsteady even with the extra _boost_ from the fully activated implants. This was the moment of truth. He already shared a bond with Jared. He’d shared his body, mind, and as much of his soul as he dared. It was undeniable that he had physically changed since the first time they had made love. His implants were more effective, more efficient when Jared was nearby, and on the handful of times _Jared_ had been called out on the Imperial shuttle, ostensibly to train with Calvert, Jensen had found himself bereft and diminished. But what was the bond beyond some sort of cybernetic codependency? In his heart he knew it was true love, but his mind just couldn’t get past the fact he was contemplating sharing the most sacred secret of Citadel with someone who was still, at least technically, a Republic spy.

Before he knew it, he was crossing the threshold to his cabin, the door sliding shut behind him as the security engaged with an audible confirmation from Karen. The thing was, he wasn’t _contemplating_ sharing the secret. He had already made up his mind. He had to. Jared was his Consort and if they had any chance of saving the Citadel Codex, Jared couldn’t be in the dark.

Without another word, Jensen crossed to his bunk and sat down, patting the seat beside him as he rolled up his right sleeve.

Jared took a seat without further discussion.

“It’s not a bioengineered crystal bonded with my arm,” Jensen explained as Jared’s fingers skimmed along the surface.

This close, through their implants, he could feel Jared’s surprise and confusion.

“The surface is crystal, and it is part of the key, but it isn’t bonded to bone, it grows out of the crystal underneath, the crystal that forms the support structure for much of my forearm instead of bone. You see, we’re not bonded to crystals, we’re born with them. It’s a complex gene resequencing that results in heritable modifications. The keys are passed down through the royal line. Bonded vassals and nobles had more limited versions, and every once in a while we would give the full therapy to a new adult pledge, usually someone marrying into the royal family or becoming a new noble due to their demonstrated commitment to the service of Citadel. The reason the keys died with the victims of Apraxix9 is—”

“The keys are alive,” Jared realized aloud.

Jensen nodded. 

“So when they cut your arm, you said they cut bone—”

Jensen couldn’t quite suppress the flinch at the unwanted flashback, blood pooling in his lungs as his chest burned from the pain of the plasma scalpel, his right hand and wrist a ball of agony while the Imperial Commander stomped on it again and again, crushing bone. The sensation of the scalpel carving into flesh and then nicking the edge of the surface crystal, pure agony as the concentrated nerotransmitters amplified the pain tenfold, the smell of burning flesh that nevertheless bled as the scalpel carved through it, cutting through both bones in his forearm, skipping, then cutting again as Jensen struggled, accidentally breaking out a chunk of his radius before the scalpel skipped again, and imbedded itself in the edge of the internal crystal. He could taste the vomit in his mouth, the cloying mix of blood and stomach acid as he struggled, desperate to reach the cube and complete the failsafe sequence, grateful he had already used his key, uncertain if it would still work. His leg twinged and flinched as he kicked out, striking his assailant and gaining leverage, but at the cost of dropping his left foot into the expanding puddle of Apraxix9. He’d felt his leg die and then the sensation of death spread upwards as first his foot then his ankle, shin, knee, thigh, hip, groin, and then his internal organs were turned off, rendered _un_ living as if a switch had been flipped. He’d managed to splash the bioweapon on the Imperial Commander, which had startled him as he tried to get out of the way and stop the effects from spreading. It had been the reprieve Jensen had needed to reach out with his left hand and poke the datacube, his DNA all that was needed to complete the sequence. He’d sent the datacubes into subspace expecting to die and knowing that if he lived, his key might be too damaged to bring them back.

Jensen shook himself free of the flashback, and met Jared’s eyes. The pain reflected there told him Jared had _seen_ or felt his pain across the implants. “How?” he asked. 

“A Republic SpecDev team bombed the tower moments after I activated the failsafe. They realized I was still alive and pulled me out, stopped the Apraxix from spreading further. They never saw the datacubes and I had swapped ID with a friend, so it appeared Jensen was dead and a valiant nobleman had been saved. By the time I woke up we were two sectors away on a Venian refugee ship.”

“So the crystal in your arm was damaged?” Jared asked, uncertain.

“It was cut, but the key is a living part of me. It healed. It healed better than just about anything else, they had to replace the surrounding bone with carbonfiber implants because it was too damaged to grow. I just don’t know if my crystal healed right.”

“So there’s a chance—”

“There’s a chance I can’t access the Codex and if I try, I blow myself and my surroundings up. I still have to try,” Jensen said with a smile.

“So the datacubes—” Jared asked.

“They’re really more like locks. I’m the key that opens the lock. The cubes are connected through subspace, so if I access one, I can access them all. There are other protocols, protocols for downloading the Codex, giving it a tangible presence, but I don’t know that much about them because that wasn’t supposed to be my job. But the battle went sideways, none of the defenses worked the way they were supposed to, my sister died, and I was the only one left.”

“Someone betrayed you. Someone broke their oath to Citadel, that’s the only way your defenses could have failed.”

“That’s my conclusion,” Jensen admitted.

“And why you were so terrified of telling me,” Jared surmised.

Jensen reached out and placed Jared’s hand on the external key, the warmth and strength washing through Jensen and giving him hope. “I wasn’t terrified; I just had to be sure.”

“I’ll make an oath, whatever you need me to do,” Jared offered.

“You already have,” Jensen admitted. “By loving me, the bond, I can feel you won’t betray me because betraying me would betray yourself.”

Jared pulled Jensen into his arms and gently laid them both down on the narrow bunk. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect you and to see this through.”

“We’re running out of time,” Jensen admitted. “I think…” he sighed. “I’ve been using a modified version of Connell’s search parameters to compare her findings to the mapping I had done before. It didn’t turn anything up until… I saw a pattern. I can’t explain it. The computer doesn’t think there’s a pattern, but I can feel it, I can _see_ where the datacubes have been, where they’re going to emerge.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “There’s an emergence two days from now. The subspace window will open about three hours from our projected position if we stay on the course Connell plotted.”

“What are you thinking?” Jared asked.

“Take our own shuttle, disable the _Diligent_ with Karen’s help to lock it down, sabotage their shuttle. The timing’s a bit off because it would be almost morning. But, we’ve got to buy time to get there without them. If we waited until they’re on a field trip, the window will have closed.”

“That’s if you can get Calvert to wait that long,” Jared mused, “the first sign of trouble he’s going to trigger a mass inversion. He’ll summon the _Iscariot_ if he has to, and I don’t think he’s got enough patience to wait more than 2 or 3 more days.” Jared cocked his head to the side, “I’ve got some sedatives in my bag. Don’t think either of them knows about them, they were one of my options for my original mission. I could repurpose them to maybe… help the Imperials sleep a little longer, buy us time to take a shuttle out?”

“You know the second they wake up they’ll be after us. Even if we mask our trail, they’re almost as close to mapping the inversions as I am. There’s a good chance they’ll find us before I’m done. Assuming my key even works.”

“But we don’t really have another choice,” Jared pointed out. 

“No, this is it. It’s a plan at least,” Jensen replied.

“And I’ll be there with you. I’m not leaving you,” Jared said, pressing a kiss into Jensen’s hair.

The words had Jensen relaxing again, his body craving more, needing to be with Jared, the implants already responding to his need, preparing his body.

“God, Jensen, you’re amazing,” Jared murmured as he began pulling off their clothes.

An hour later, finally calmed, the constant strain of fear abated, Jensen succumbed to sleep, Jared’s dick buried firmly inside him, one hand clasped firmly over the bioelectric key. With the uncertainty looming before them, at least Jensen could relish these moments of feeling whole and content. It was more than he’d had for the last 15 years.

***  
***


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

The _Diligent’s_ shuttle, _Diligent One_ , pulled away from the port-side airlock with a puff of decompressing air and the subtle thunk of disengaging docking clamps.

“Are you with us?” Jensen asked, voice tight. His chest clenched as he waited for the reply.

“I am here,” came Karen’s voice over the speakers after a delay. There was another pause. “And I am there,” he could hear the smile in her voice. “Subspace linkup with my primary host computer established. I will be here with you and also ready to monitor activities aboard the _Diligent_.”

“Good,” Jared replied from his seat in the copilot’s chair.

Jensen bit back a groan. “I still think we should have disconnected you from the _Diligent_ while we’re off the ship. I don’t _trust_ them around you.” He couldn’t help but think of Connell and Calvert alone with Karen’s source code, if they attacked her, they could destroy or corrupt her. Even if she had transferred a full copy to the shuttle’s computer banks, there likely wasn’t room, she risked losing memories or even having her personality altered. Not to mention they could use her connection to the _Diligent_ to piggyback initiate a back trace or piggyback a virus.

“If they woke up and found Karen was not responsive, we’d be discovered in an instant, you know it. We’d have no way to know when they were coming. At least this way Karen can give us updates and distract them. It will delay their discovery that we are gone and give us a heads up when they’re after us.” Jared spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, but there was a tightness around his eyes that belied his calm demeanor. He was worried. 

“Karen, you’ve got to promise me, do whatever you can to protect yourself. I don’t care if you have to damage the _Diligent_ or directly attack the Imperial reps. Do whatever you can to keep yourself safe, okay?” Jensen pleaded.

“Jensen, I have to protect you. I’ll do what I can for myself, but your mission has to come first,” came Karen’s solemn reply.

“I’ll do what I can to help,” Jared offered. “If there’s anything I can do to lighten the load, just tell me, you have my uplink.” He tapped the implant behind his ear.

Jensen let out a long, controlled sigh, and leaned back against his chair. He hadn’t expected accompaniment for this. In all his years of searching, he figured if he ever got close to retrieving one of the datacubes he would be on his own. In his daydreams, when he gave in to the temptation, he hadn’t even imagined Karen being there. He was always alone, and it was always more of a pilgrimage, a penance. Jensen had thought about retrieving the datacubes as a way to retrieve a part of his history, honor his people, make up for the harm he had caused—by not being at his post when the attack came, by surviving, by not dying with his people—imagined or real. _Sharing_ or broadcasting the contents of the datacube had never crossed his mind. The Codex was to be protected. The secrets locked away to maintain balance. 

But if manipulated correctly, each cube could broadcast only what he chose, secreting away other data, freeing that which he wanted. Still, it hadn’t seemed like an option.

First, because it felt like he would be trying to absolve himself, shirking responsibility for the people he failed to save, honoring himself for living instead of dying with the rest of his family. Then because it felt too personal. He had no way of knowing exactly whose cam footage or what logs would be saved on a particular datacube, or if each cube would still be able to access the full Codex while the other cubes were in subspace. And while in theory, one cube could be used to locate the rest, so perhaps a more appropriate narrative or record could be found and broadcast, it always seemed like an intrusion. Everyone involved in the history of Citadel, in the history of the cubes, was dead, wouldn’t he be disrespecting their memories by playing back their final moments? Finally, as the years had stretched on, it had seemed impossible and irrelevant. After all these years, who still cared about Citadel. It was at best a failed experiment, at worst a monstrous disgrace. No one talked about searching the planet’s ruins anymore. The Empire and Republic had agreed to a mutual blockade of the system, resorting to installing a network of mines and satellites around the Kuiper Belt and in several other arcs around the orbital plane creating a strong deterrent to any interlopers. Sure, rumor had it pirates, smugglers, and migrants had mapped routes through the satellite-enhanced minefield, but even Jensen was content to let them be.

But now… now he knew. The Empire wasn’t content to let Citadel lie, and they weren’t above destroying and debasing the people of Citadel’s history to do so. If Calvert had his way, the Central Empire would disrupt subspace over an entire system, possibly an entire sector, risking every vessel traveling, potentially materializing ships inside stars or planets, causing further harm and destruction. The truth, whatever it was worth, would never get out, the dead would not be left in peace, and the secrets of Apraxix9 would be on the open market waiting for the next malicious, amoral, unethical, or even desperate government to use on the unsuspecting masses.

On a more personal note, Jensen had no illusions that his original identity would be known and released to the masses should anything be broadcast from the datacubes. Everyone who had ever associated with him or helped him would be in danger. Of course, he could hope that if the Empire or the Republic found one of the datacubes they wouldn’t be able to unlock it. But he knew, given enough time, they would find a way.

So, that was the plan. Get to the coordinates, wait for the cube to pop into realspace, use his key in the lock, and access whatever he could to spread whatever information as far and as wide as he could while there was still time, to try to stop the Empire (or the Republic) for going through with their plans.

~~~

~~~

“Come on, Jensen, you can do it,” Jared encouraged, his voice a tinny echo of its usual warmth over the suit comms.

Jensen breathed. The cube was in front of him, more beautiful than he had remembered. A jade-green cube of translucent cryptoglass filled with an amethyst gas and at the center of the hazy cloud was a large hexagonal prism. The prism looked smoky through the protective gas, but he knew when it was opened, it would refract a rainbow of colors from deep ruby to vibrant violet, pulsating as it transmitted the information contained within. The cryptoglass was only a micron thick, but any attempt to break it and it would destroy the crystal within, shorting out and corrupting every bit of data stored. The glass would also explode outwards propelling the extraordinarily sharp shrapnel into the body of the interloper and anyone and anything else around. The glass itself was sharp enough and would explode with such force that it could kill, causing its victim to bleed out in minutes, but the glass wasn’t the only defense. The gas held inside was a powerful neurotoxin that would shutoff the brainstem of any who encountered it, whether they breathed it in, touched it, or absorbed it through the wounds inflicted by the glass shrapnel. Of course, the gas wasn’t toxic to members of the Citadel royal family or their bonded clans. And the glass itself could be unlocked if exposed to the correct bioelectric key. 

Like the key embedded in Jensen’s right forearm. The key that he hadn’t had a means to test since his arm was crushed 15 years ago. If the key was corrupted… the cube would explode on contact. He’d be dead, the _Diligent One_ would likely take heavy damage, and there was a decent chance Jared would be injured if not killed. On the up side, the Imps wouldn’t get this cube. Of course, they could use the inversion array and rupture subspace in the entire unclaimed sector, exclusion zone, and Citadel itself until they found a cube they could hack.

There was always the possibility the datacubes would all be unhackable, but then the knowledge, history, and legacy of Citadel would be lost, the Codex destroyed. And while Jensen had nothing but respect and admiration for the skills of his many greats grandmother in genetic manipulation, bioengineering, cybernetics, and crypto security, he was not willing to bet the fate of the universe on the superiority of her skills against the determination and resourcefulness of the Central Empire that, after all, had had 15 years to study the secrets already smuggled out of Citadel, and when combined with the lure of more galaxy-altering promises like Apraxix9 and the mystery of the royal keys themselves, had a very good chance of winning.

Of course, if the key just didn’t register, if the key was too damaged to register as a _key_ then the glass would remain inert, the Imperials would arrive, and they’d have both him and the datacube.

“Oh shit!” Karen’s voice came over the suit coms at the same time, Jensen heard the distant pop of a ship emerging from subspace as depicted on the shuttle’s sensors. He chanced a glance over his shoulder, then looked up, down, and up, again until he saw it. It was the _Iscariot_ which meant at least, the Imperials hadn’t been able to file up the _Diligent’s_ reactor after Karen locked it out. 

There was no time now. The cube required direct contact with a key to unlock. Well, the key should survive a little decompression, even if he couldn’t, and there was a chance, at least, that the implants would boost his vitals enough to keep him alive, even if there was a good chance he’d lose his arm…

“I can do this,” he said half to himself.

“Jensen!” came Jared’s shocked exclamation over the comms. Jensen heard a lot of half hushed swearing and what sounded like a hasty argument between Karen and Jared, before Jared’s voice returned, crystal clear. “I’m going to turn the ship and vent the reactor at the _Iscariot_ , it should scramble their sensors and buy us a little time.” 

Jared might have said more, but Jensen wasn’t listening. He was focused inward, thinking “on” at his implants, urging them past their limits.

He took a deep breath and stilled himself against the pain that would come. Carefully, he pulled out his utility knife and made two quick slashes around his suit’s right arm, one on either side of the data crystal. As his suit began to lose pressure, he tore out the material between the two cuts, as his suit sealed to his skin. His nerves overloaded as he could feel nanites rushing to his arm, trying to get to the exposed skin, despite the lack of portals there. For a moment, he could feel an impossible cold seeping through the hypersensitive neurotransmitters in the crystalline key as the cold leached down into his arm and settled in the large crystal underneath. Then nothing. His arm bloated and turned white, the pattern of the key glinting eerie blue in the reflected light of the cube. He could no longer feel his hand. He took the cube in his gloved left hand and pressed it to the key. 

At first, nothing happened. Then the jade glass turned red and a circular clock dial projected on its surface began spinning. _Shit_! The key was corrupted, and they were going to die. His heart leapt. _No!_ It had to work, if he could just—he pressed the cube into his damaged arm harder trying to make sure the entire key made contact. Suddenly the dial slowed, then stopped, blinked twice, and disappeared. The glass turned green again, hissed, and slowly slid back, the gas dissipating harmlessly and the crystal, as if magnetized, floated towards the key and latched on. 

Jensen wasn’t entirely sure or aware of what happened next. The second the crystal made contact with the key, it was as if his entire body was struck by lightning, only the lightning continued to flow through him. More information than he had learned in his lifetime seemed to download into his brain. His head snapped back, and his eyes blinked wide open, as lights began to flick across his pupils. His mouth opened, but there was no breath. He was no longer human, no longer needed to breathe. Right now, he existed as pure data. He was the crystal and the datacube and the knowledge it contained, and the knowledge was him. His entire body, every cell reprogrammed into a tiny supercomputer, all of them, billions of cells working together. The embodiment of the Codex brought out of the ether and tethered to life.

Did he want to share the truth of the battle of Citadel? Yes, yes he did. Did he want to share first-hand accounts, yes, but only if he viewed them first to make sure they did not disrespect the sacrifice of those who observed them. But just as soon as he thought it, the data was reviewed, the selections made. Did he want to broadcast? Yes. As long as he could hit all the subspace relays and blanket both the independent systems and the galactic powers. Well that was easily done. Was he sure? Yes.

The choices rushed through him in an instant. More questions about more secrets, more knowledge. More of Citadel’s mysteries and history there for him to choose to share or keep secret a while longer. Jensen’s sense of _self_ was gone. But as his organic body subsumed in the supercomputer cloud, his nanotech implants cried out, as Jared reached for him, unable to accept the loss. Did Jensen want to stay? Would he want to remain human… well, maybe human wasn’t the right word. Should the computer, maintain the persona of Jensen, yes? And reach out to Jared to reassure him? )kay. 

The tiny flicker of Jensen that was still Jensen was dimly aware of the sudden closeness of Jared across several klicks’ distance as their implants somehow _connected_ in a way they never had before. And once the connection was made, the computer decided it was time to broadcast. An endless beam of sapphire light flowed out of the crystal at the heart of the datacube and through Jensen’s arm, and across the known galaxy, every functioning comms system received the message. Citadel was speaking at last.

***  
***


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Awareness filtered back to Jensen in a slow trickle.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Something rhythmic was beeping beside him, just distracting enough to pull him from the quiet, safe lull of subspace, because that’s where he was, not a dream. He was connected to the folds of the universe the connections and tunnels through spacetime, the curvature of the galaxy. The dark matter between galaxies floating through his synapses like silk against his skin.

But now the beeping was distracting him. He wondered if he could wake and tell it to stop.

Well, to tell it, he would need to speak, and speaking required air, but he was not breathing. The realization did not alarm him, because he was a computer. Actually billions of tiny supercomputers and they metabolized through their membranes but did not need to breathe. Only… he was the computer, but he was also Jensen, and the computer wanted to be dormant, was dormant, or was going into a period of dormancy, and Jensen needed to breathe, but he couldn’t. His body didn’t know how to do any of the human things. The sublimation wasn’t supposed to go both ways. He would exist as a part of the computer, but he wasn’t supposed to go back to being Jensen, not with a full download. Because that was what it had been. He had mainlined every bit and byte of collective knowledge of the universe that had been assembled by the historians of Citadel as of the time of the great massacre. The entire Codex made tangible and stored billions of tiny biocomputers networked together. But the computer hadn’t been expecting the implants. Another system of computers, artificial, synthetic instead of biological, yet complementary existing alongside the Citadel Codex’s biocomputer. And that system was protective and rather connected, or bonded, to another. That system was not within a biological computer, but it was someone to whom Jensen was very attached. So, the biocomputer had done what it could, and yes, with the help of the _implants_ together they had figured away to transition between the Codex and Jensen, so they existed side by side the Codex dormant, unless needed.

But the now they—who was they?—were trying to merge a third computer. A new system of implants, filling in the gaps where there weren’t implants before. And the system wanted to handshake with the original implants, but the biocomputer housing the Codex wasn’t sure. 

The implants were talking to it. Oh, was that it? The new system was supposed to help with all the human things the biocomputer didn’t know how to do. Well, then, if the new system let the biocomputer scan it, make sure they were compatible, then yes, the biocomputer could go dormant for the timebeing, and Jensen could continue waking up and—”

Suddenly, he breathed. A simple rise and fall of his chest once so familiar, but gone for so long—181 standard days, almost as long as his leg had laid dormant after the battle. And as he breathed, he began to feel himself. His body as a whole person. 

“That’s it, Jensen,” just breathe. Let the implants do their thing. Don’t fight them.” It was Jared talking, and Jared had showed him how to make peace with his implants back when his cells were cells and part of a body rather than the biocomputer housing the Codex, so Jensen relaxed and gave in. 

When he finally fluttered open his eyes he saw Jared smiling down at him. They kissed, and for the first time since the Battle of Citadel, Jensen was at peace.

“Hi there,” Jared said, when he came up for air what felt like minutes later. 

“Hi yourself,” Jensen said, finding the words a little hard to form, his voice slightly alien to his ears. 

“Karen, she told me what had happened, understood what you’d become, but knew you were still in there,” Jared spoke, his expression wrecked. They’d been apart far longer than they’d been together, but the haunted look in Jared’s eyes left no question how much he had come to depend on Jensen in such a short time. How deeply he loved.

“On Citadel, when we came of age, we made a pledge, to willingly give our lives for the Codex,” Jensen admitted. “I always thought I was pledging to die protecting it, I never realized I could _become_ it.”

“I’m just glad the implants gave you a way back, another option,” Jared murmured, pulling Jensen upright and into his arms.

“The Codex is still here, you know, I’m her and she’s me. And _Jensen_ isn’t what he was before,” the biocomputer added, speaking through Jensen. 

Jared blinked and seemed to understand. “It’s going to take a little getting used to.” He smiled, “but between the implants and Karen, we’ll have some help with the translations.”

“She’s right, you know. We saved the legacy of Citadel. The truth of the massacre is out in the world, but there’s so much more… there’s hope for the world left behind, and secrets that need to be shared and protected, I cannot turn my back on it.” _Not now, not ever._

Jared nodded in understanding. “And I’m on board. After all, my implants are bonded to yours, I’m bonded to you. The Royal Consort of Citadel, remember? And I take that duty seriously.” 

It was Jensen’s turn to smile, tentatively moving his arms and reaching up to pull Jared down for another kiss. “We’ll figure it out. Right now, I’m just glad to be back in the world, with you.” And for the first time since Citadel fell, he was looking forward to the future. “Can’t wait to see what comes next.”

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings/Spoilers:
> 
> Chapter 6 (which is "Chapter 7: Chapter 6" on the menu) contains graphic sex, including bottom!Jensen and fisting. If that's not your cup of tea, please feel free to skip that chapter.
> 
> If you have any concerns about triggers or other specific warnings, please message me. Thanks!


End file.
